Cindy Pickett (born April 18, 1947) is an American actress known for her role in the comedy movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off as Matthew Broderick's character's mom, as well as playing the mother of a boy who was kidnapped for several years in the dramatic TV movie I Know My First Name Is Steven.
Pickett played the central role in the 1980 film "Night Games", directed by Roger Vadim. In the 1981 mystery/crime drama, Margin for Murder, Pickett played the role of Velda, Mike Hammer's (Kevin Dobson) loyal and devoted secretary. She played "Jackie Marler" on the soap opera The Guiding Light from 1976 to 1980, "Vanessa Sarnac" on the ABC weekly TV series Call to Glory from 1984 to 1985, and she appeared on the hospital drama TV series St. Elsewhere from 1986 to 1988.
TV series she has guest-starred on include Simon & Simon, Magnum, P.I., L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, The Pretender, NYPD Blue, CSI: Miami, Without a Trace, and Crossing Jordan.
Pickett was born in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, daughter of Cecil Pickett, a director and drama teacher at the University of Houston. She met her husband, Lyman Ward, on the set of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (the actors' characters were husband and wife), and they married sometime afterwards, although they have since divorced.
