Mary Wickes

The Woman Who Never Needed a Close-Up

Mary Wickes stood nearly six feet tall and had a face that looked carved from granite. She was not the innocent type from the movie. Nor did she try to be.

In 1934, she made her Broadway debut after studying law, a career she abandoned because the stage pulled harder than the civil code. Orson Welles directed her on stage and soon realized that Wickes was a precision comedic weapon. She didn’t need grand gestures. A look of disapproval or a dry remark was enough to steal the scene from whoever was the lead.

She was the perfect supporting actress.

Her looks shaped the roles she got, but she turned them into financial savvy. In 1942 she brought her stage success The Man Who Came to Dinner to the big screen, opposite Bette Davis. That grumpy nurse laid the foundation for a career that lasted six decades. Wickes was never a dazzling marquee star. She was something far more valuable to Hollywood studios: a guarantee of rhythm.

She worked with Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy and became a constant presence on television in the 1950s. Before filming, she would read the script looking for gaps where her natural sarcasm could shine. She was never out of work for more than a few months.

Habit, Piano and an Unmistakable Voice

Younger audiences discovered her in 1992 thanks to Sister Act. She played Sister Mary Lazarus, a nun with a sense of humor as sharp as her profile. She was 82 years old and still had the same comedic timing she had at the start of her career in vaudeville. And the bet paid off.

She reprised the role in the sequel to 1993. However, her health began to decline shortly afterward due to respiratory complications. Despite her physical struggles, in 1994 she accepted the role of Aunt March in the version of Little Women directed by Gillian Armstrong. It was her last on-screen appearance.

Work was his only religion.

Wickes never married and had no children. She lived for her characters and for a Catholic faith she practiced quietly. On set, she was known as extremely professional and somewhat tight-lipped about her private life. So when her health deteriorated sharply in 1995, very few people in the industry knew how serious her condition was.

Her Last Breath in the Recording Booth

Her last major project was voicing the gargoyle Laverne in the Disney animated classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She did not live to see the release of 1996. She died in October 1995 on an operating table in Los Angeles while undergoing breast surgery. She had kidney failure and severe anemia, which wore down her stamina.

After her death, it emerged that she had built a considerable fortune through decades of saving and well-negotiated supporting contracts. She donated two million dollars to set up a fund in memory of her parents at the St. Louis hospital. It was her last major production, this time away from the spotlight.

Disney's film had to complete its pending dialogue with Jane Withers's voice.