Mary Wickes

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a local actress who made good in its edition of October 21, 1934.

A NEW Marc Connelly play, "The Farmer Takes a Wife,” is set for a Broadway opening Wednesday night. Acting as understudy to Margaret Hamilton in the lead role is Mary Wickes, who is better known to St. Louisans by her real name of Mary Wickenhauser.
Miss Wickes, regularly in a minor part, had the lead role for several performances in Philadelphia last week, where the play has already opened, when Miss Hamilton became ill. Miss Wickes, graduate of Washington University, is a former comedienne of the St. Louis Little Theater and received further training at the Berkshire Playhouse, Stockbridge, Ma. Her first professional appearance was well-received by Philadelphia critics, according to a letter to Cowles Strickland, director of Little Theater.

Wickes never became a star, but she was a fine character actress, working opposite such diverse talents as Abbott and Costello, Monty Woolley, Shemp Howard and Acquanetta. She did have a starring role on television—she played Mary Poppins well before Julie Andrews. It seems to me she had a wise-crack about that once. Wickes wasn’t far from a withering comment when the mood struck her.

She had a long career. The same newspaper chatted with her in its issue of June 20, 1991, later syndicated.

Actress Mary Wickes: Her Phone Still Rings
By Harper Barnes
Post-Dispatch Movie Critic
"OH, SO YOU'RE a movie critic," said Mary Wickes. She looked intently across the table, her eyes bright and piercing as crystal daggers.
"Did ya see 'Postcards from the Edge'?" she asked.
"Yes," was the answer.
"Did ya like it?"
"Sure."
"I'm in it, you know," she said, a smile flitting across her lips. Her eyes were twinkling, but she continued to look appraisingly across the table.
"You were great," was the response. "You should have been nominated for an Academy Award."
She raised her eyebrows, grinned and lightly slapped the table with her right hand. "That," she said, "is true.' She laughed heartily and rolled her eyes, simultaneously suggesting three things: (1) she knew very well when someone was trying to flatter her; (2) she understood that the whole Hollywood ego game was pretty much of a joke; (3) she was still very proud of her work in the movie.
In "Postcards from the Edge," the 1990 film version of Carrie Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in Hollywood, Wickes plays the eccentric grandmother and holds her own with frequent Oscar nominees Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. The movie just came out on videotape, giving us yet another chance to watch Mary Wickes do what she does best—bring an abundance of character to character acting.
Wickes has also been seen recently in the TV series "Father Dowling Mysteries," in which she plays the quippy housekeeper and cook to a priest played by Tom Bosley.
A St. Louis native (she grew up as Mary Wickenhauser) and 1934 graduate of Washington University, Wickes had flown here from her Los Angeles home to speak to Forest Park Forever, a nonprofit group that works to improve the park. Two days before she came, she received a phone call informing her that the "Father Dowling" series had been canceled after three seasons.
"It was quite a surprise," she said. "We thought the show was doing well, and people are always coming up and saying how much they enjoy it. People are always asking me for a piece of my apple pie. We've always had good ratings. I don't know, there's new management at the network, and I hear they're clearing the decks for a bunch of half-hour sitcoms next year."
"You know," she said, "I'm not sure these bankers who run the networks these days know what they're doing." She shrugged. "Maybe the show can be saved. Write letters. Sometimes that works. Send your letters to ABC."

By all means, send those letters. But you shouldn't worry that septagenarian Mary Wickes will be out of work if the series is not renewed. Wickes has been successful in show business since the mid-1930s—her first notable role was the nurse in the Broadway hit "The Man Who Came to Dinner," a part she repeated in the movie version. Her other early movies include "Now, Voyager," the 1942 Bette Davis romantic classic. In all, she has appeared in about 40 movies, and the phone still rings.
"I'm very choosy," she said. "I won't do anything that's in bad taste. One thing that's nice. I get a script from time to time that describes a part as 'a Mary Wickes part.'"
Wickes was staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton for a few days, visiting friends and taking care of some family business. Over the years, she has been a frequent and enthusiastic visitor to her old hometown, and it was typical that she would come on behalf of a group that is trying to preserve Forest Park. She grew up a few blocks from the park and still speaks fondly of childhood visits to the St Louis Art Museum, the St Louis Zoo and the Muny.
As an adult, she has appeared in a couple of dozen Muny productions, and she was very enthusiastic about Paul Blake, who took over last year as production director. "He's sharp as a tack," she said, "and he really gets you excited."
Wickes is an authority on the history of the Muny, having done considerable research on it about 20 years ago, when she went to graduate school at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"You see," she said, "Washington University gave me an honorary doctorate of arts In 1969, so I decided I would go ahead and show I could actually do the work for a graduate degree."
She shook her head. "But I'm a very busy actress. I was just getting into it when I went to London to work with Orson Welles, and that sort of thing kept happening. I still haven't written that master's thesis on the Muny. I guess I'm an actress, not a writer, although I would like to finish the thesis just to show I could do it."
When asked why she thinks the calls keep coming, Wickes said, "Well, I get along with people. I don't grouse or complain. I have no patience with actors who sign a contract and then complain about the work they agreed to do."
She laughed deep in her throat, the kind of laugh that can cheer up a table, or a theater full of people, and looked her visitor in the eye once again. "I always remember what Spencer Tracy said about acting. 'Say your lines, don't bump into the furniture and remember that Shirley Temple did it at 4.'"
She laughed again, more softly this time, and gazed across the hotel lobby.
"You know, I've been in plays with kids who'll say, 'How do you feel it every night?' And I say, 'Sweetheart, you can't feel it every night. If you did, you'd be a limp rag. The idea is to make the audience feel it'. "

Wickes died four years after this interview. She was 85.