Mary Wickes (June 13, 1910 – October 22, 1995) was an American film and television actress.
Wickes was born as Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri of German and Irish Protestant extraction. She was a member of Phi Mu women's fraternity. She began acting in films in the late 1930s, and was also a member of the Orson Welles troupe on his radio drama Mercury Theatre of the Air. One of her earliest significant film appearances was in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), reprising her stage role of "Nurse Preen".
A tall (5'10"), gangling woman with a distinctive voice, Wickes would ultimately prove herself adept as a comedienne, but she first attracted attention in the film Now, Voyager (1942), as the wise-cracking nurse who helped Bette Davis' character during her mother's illness. (She appeared with Davis again in June Bride.) The same year she had a large part in the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy-whodunnit, titled Who Done It?. She continued playing supporting roles in films during the next decade, usually playing wisecracking characters. A prime example of which was her deadpan characterisation of Stella, the harassed housekeeper, in the Doris Day vehicles By the Light of the Silvery Moon and On Moonlight Bay, her ascerbic asides balancing much of the sugar coated nostalgia evident in these films. She played similar roles in two later movies with Rosalind Russell The Trouble with Angels and Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows in the mid 1960s.
Moving to the new medium television in the 1950s she played the warm, yet wisecracking maid Katie in the Mickey Mouse Club serial Walt Disney Presents: Annette and regular roles in the sitcoms Make Room for Daddy and Dennis The Menace, as well as appearing as Emma the housekeeper in the holiday classic White Christmas (1954), starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. She served as the live-action reference model for Cruella De Vil in Walt Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and played Mrs. Squires in the film adaptation of Meredith Willson's The Music Man (1962). A lifelong friend of Lucille Ball, she played frequent guest roles in Ball's three television series, I Love Lucy, Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show. In 1970-1971 she guest starred on CBS's The Doris Day Show. (Day was another of her long-term friends.)
She was also a regular on the Sid and Marty Krofft children's television show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and the sitcom Doc. By the 1980s, her appearances in television series such as M*A*S*H, The Love Boat, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Murder, She Wrote had made her a widely recognisable character actress. She also appeared in a variety of Broadway shows, including a 1979 revival of Oklahoma! where she portrayed Aunt Eller.
She appeared in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge cast as Shirley MacLaine's mother, and from 1989 to 1991 portrayed Marie Murkin in the television movie and series adaptations of Father Dowling Mysteries. However, she achieved the biggest success of her career in Sister Act (1992). As Sister Mary Lazarus, Wickes' portrayal of a very gruff, strict but vulnerable elderly nun contributed to the film's popularity, and she reprised the role in the sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). She also did the voice of Maxine on the line of greeting cards that are still in publication.
She appeared in the 1994 film version of Little Women before she became ill. She was hospitalized the following year suffering from numerous ailments, including renal failure, massive gastrointestinal bleeding, severe hypotension, ischemic cardiomyopathy, anemia and breast cancer (stage of cancer unknown), which cumulatively resulted in her death during surgery in 1995.
Although the nature of their relationship has been disputed, she was for many years the companion of playwright Abby Conrad. A registered Republican who had never been married, Wickes left a large estate and made a $2 million bequest, in memory of her parents, for the Isabella and Frank Wickenhauser Memorial Library Fund for Television, Film and Theater Arts.
Her final film role, voicing the gargoyle Laverne in the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released posthumously in 1996. Her interment was located at the Shiloh Valley Cemetery in Shiloh, Illinois.
In 2004, Wickes was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
External links
Mary Wickes at the Internet Movie Database
Washington University Library Site - Papers of Mary Wickes including photograph
Wickes' Entry on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
Mary Wickes at Find A Grave
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wickes"
Categories: 1910 births | 1995 deaths | American film actors | American musical theatre actors | American radio actors | American television actors | Deaths from surgical complications | People from St. Louis, Missouri | Washington University in St. Louis alumniHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since September 2007
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