Biography
Mary Wickes (born Mary Isabella Wickenhauser) was an American character actress who worked in film, television and theatre from the 1930s to the 1990s. She frequently played supporting roles as prim, professional women such as secretaries, nurses, nuns and housekeepers.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 13 June 1910, she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in political science before turning to acting. Her Broadway debut came in 1934 in The Farmer Takes a Wife. She appeared in films including White Christmas (1954) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and on television in series such as MAS*H and Murder, She Wrote.
Later roles included Sister Mary Lazarus in Sister Act (1992) and its 1993 sequel, Aunt March in Little Women (1994), and the voice of Gargoyle Laverne in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), released after her death. Wickes died on 22 October 1995 in Los Angeles following complications from surgery.
