Mary Wickes was born Mary Isabella Wickenhauser in Saint Louis, Missouri, on June 13, 1910. She graduated from Beaumont High School at the age of 16. Her family home was a stone’s throw from the Washington University campus. Being an only child and a young entering freshman may have contributed to her college choice selection.
The home in which the Wickenhauser family lived on Pershing Avenue in St. Louis
While at Washington University, she became an initiate of Phi Mu. She was also a member of Mortar Board, National Collegiate Players and Zeta Phi Eta, a national professional dramatic society. She was active in Thyrsus Club productions and comedy roles seemed to be her forte. After graduation in 1930, she was hired as an assistant publicity director in the university’s news bureau.
She attended the Phi Mu’s 1929 convention as a collegian and the 1931 convention as an alumna. She served on the staff of the convention daily newspaper, The Phi Mu Star. She also served on the editorial staff of The Aglaia and was a contributor to Banta’s Greek Exchange.
1929 Phi Mu Star convention newspaper
The January 1935 issue of The Aglaia of Phi Mu
Wickenhauser appeared 104 times as an amateur in Washington University and Little Theater of Saint Louis productions. She often wrote sketches for the Little Theater Players. A dentist saw some of her work and she was commissioned to write a pageant for the 75th anniversary of the Washington University dental school.
St Louis Star and Time, November 27, 1931
She turned professional in 1933, according to an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Her first professional role was for the Casey Players was in Reunion in Vienna. The performance took place in the Shubert Rialto Theater.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 23, 1933
She first went to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1934 after being persuaded to make the trek by F. Cowles Strickland, who directed her on some Little Theater plays. She was successful in her attempt at summer stock and she made it to Broadway that fall. In October, it was announced in a Saint Louis newspaper that she accepted a role in The Farmer Takes a Wife as an understudy to Margaret Hamilton. It was mentioned that she would act under the name “Mary Wickes.”
At the 1940 Phi Mu convention she was awarded the Phi Mu national dramatic award. That November, on a trip home to visit her parents and appear in a local production, she was the guest of honor at a tea given by her chapter. In 1948, she was a special guest at the Founders’ Day celebration held by the Los Angeles alumnae chapter.
St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 6, 1940
She worked in radio with Orson Welles, appeared in films and then began appearing on television in 1949. Wickes played a variety of characters. Lucille Ball was a good friend of hers and she played a variety of guest roles on I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, and Here’s Lucy. For a montage of Wickes‘ movie roles view this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt2TMDL-WU0
St. Louis Star and Times, March 28, 1941
Wickes came home to St. Louis to visit her parents and often visited the Wash U campus. Adele Starbird, who served as Dean of Women, told of one of Wickes’ visits in a newspaper story.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 25, 1947
In 1955, Wickes was awarded a Wash U Distinguished Alumni Award. An honorary doctorate followed in 1969. She did stints an an artist-in-residence and guest lecturer and she rode in the 1986 Homecoming parade. The university remained a constant in her life.
Wickes died on October 22, 1995 at the age of 85 and is buried in Shiloh, Illinois. The grave marker does not mention her stage name and is a simple stone with her given name.
Washington University was the beneficiary of a $2 million bequest to establish the Isabella and Frank Wickenhauser Memorial Library Fund for Television, Film and Theater Arts. The University archives contains many items pertaining to her time as a student and her career in New York and Hollywood. In 2004, she was inducted posthumously into the Saint Louis Walk of Fame.
