Mary Wickes

June 13

Few have a list of works as long as Mary Wickes does on Internet Movie Database. Born in Saint Louis, MO, on June 13, 1910, Ms. Wickes played the wisecracking busybody Emma Allen in "White Christmas." It was a role she played expertly and often from "I Love Lucy" in the 50's to the voice of Laverne, an acerbic gargoyle in Disney's “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” 1996. Her career spanned stage, screen and television is outlined on IMDB here.

Wickes suffered from numerous ailments in the last years of her life including kidney failure, massive gastrointestinal bleeding, severe low blood pressure, ischemic cardiomyopathy, anemia and breast cancer (stage of cancer unknown), which cumulatively resulted in her death from surgical complications on October 22, 1995, at age 85.