Everything about Mary Wickes totally explained
Mary Wickes (
June 13,
1910 –
October 22,
1995) was an
American film and
television actress.
Wickes was born as
Mary Isabella 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'd 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 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, 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 (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.
In 2004, Wickes was inducted into the
St. Louis Walk of Fame.
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