Mary Wickes (1910 - 1995)

Mary Wickes was a United States film and television character actress whose long career on the stage and in films extended from The Man Who Came to Dinner to  Sister Act.

Born Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 13, 1910, she began acting in films in the late 1930s. One of her earliest significant film appearances was in The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1942. A tall, gangling woman with a distinctive voice, Wickes would ultimately prove herself adept as a comedienne, but she first attracted attention in the 1942 film Now, Voyager as the wise-cracking nurse who helped Bette Davis' character during her mother's illness. 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.

In the 1950s she played regular roles in the television sitcoms Make Room for Daddy and Dennis The Menace as spinster Miss Cathcart. She appeared as Emma the housekeeper in the holiday classic White Christmas in 1954, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen and provided her voice to the Walt Disney film 101 Dalmatians in 1961. A lifelong friend of Lucille Ball, she played frequent guest roles in each of Lucy's television series, I Love Lucy, Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show. 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 recognizable character actress.

Her appearance as Shirley MacLaine's mother in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge brought her widespread attention, however she achieved the biggest success of her career in Sister Act in 1992. As Sister Mary Lazarus, Wickes' portrayal of a gruff 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 the next year. She appeared in the 1994 film version of Little Women before she became ill. Her final film, the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released in 1996 a few months after her death.

Mary Wickes died of cancer at age 85 on October 22, 1995 in Los Angeles, California. She is buried beside her parents at Shiloh Valley Cemetery in Shiloh, Illinois. She was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 2004. Unmarried, Mary 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.