The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Past chats with our guests.
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JackFavell
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by JackFavell »

Hi there, Mr. Taravella! Thank you for coming to visit us here at the Oasis.

I am VERY curious about Mary's work playing in Shakespeare. Her credits list her as playing Mistress Quickly more than once, and I wondered if she enjoyed this role and the folks she worked with.

I also read that she was friends with Whoopi Goldberg. It's nice that she kept on making friends throughout her long career, and I can see these two cutting up and making each other laugh.

Did she ever try to break out of her stereotype as the nurse/nanny/maid/nun? Did she feel she had a mission to entertain people? Was she someone who felt that her life should be devoted to theatre?

How did she get the acting bug?

And one last question, please...where in St. Louis did she live, and how long did she maintain a home there? My father is from there, and constantly talks about the many stars who lived there, like Vincent Price (who was friends with Mary) and Frank Faylen. Did she ever teach at the colleges there?
Steve_Taravella

Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

Sue Sue, one of my favorite pictures -- Mary and Ritter during a break from The Baby Sitter episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". (I've compressed it, so hope this loads OK!)
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rollyson

Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by rollyson »

Steve, I know you say a little about this in your book, but could say more about why you decided to write a book about Mary Wickes?
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Sue Sue Applegate
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Sue Sue Applegate »

Thanks for your lovely response, Steve. I love the photo! :D
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oscotto
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by oscotto »

Thanks Steve, for the deep insight into a favorite character actress who easily took to the spotlight as the stars she supported. Recently watched "I'll See You In My Dreams," and she makes her character as vital and important as those of Day and Thomas.

What came as the biggest surprise about Wickes while doing your research? Was there anything that still puzzles you about her?
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Steve_Taravella wrote:Hi, Erik. You’ll be pleased to know the M*A*S*H role was created specifically for Mary. It was written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who were writers on the Mrs. G Goes to College series, for which Mary received an Emmy nomination. Mary liked the M*A*S*H role, too, mostly because it was in such a high-profile series. The episode doesn’t hold up over time well; it’s really suggesting that women claim rape when it does not happen, and treats the subject awfully cavalierly. Trapper says, “I’ve never been to a rape before,” and Hawkeye replies, “Maybe for your next birthday,” as if watching a rape would be a treat. I can’t imagine this script being green-lighted today.

You’re right to suspect that Mary really enjoyed “White Christmas.” She liked everything about it –- the stars, the director (Curtiz had directed her twice before this, in “The Story of Will Rogers” and “I’ll See You in My Dreams”), the big budget attention it received (it was the first film shot in VistaVision) and more. She liked it so much that, in later years, she couldn’t understand why screenings of it were not promoted more.

While Mary liked working with Rosemary Clooney, and lived only about two miles from her, the two women did not see each other again until 1994, when Clooney attended Christmas Eve services at Mary’s church (All Saints’ Episcopal in Beverly Hills), where Clooney’s son Gabriel Ferrer was serving as rector. But Mary’s eyesight by this point had deteriorated so badly that she did not recognize her former co-star.

Thank You so much for your response here and I will try to come up with another question later on today - I need to get my thinking cap on ... I appreciate it very much! :)
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Sue Sue Applegate
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Sue Sue Applegate »

Steve, who was Mary Wickes agent? Did she have a long, fruitful relationship with someone professionally as a representative?
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

JackFavell wrote: I also read that she was friends with Whoopi Goldberg. It's nice that she kept on making friends throughout her long career, and I can see these two cutting up and making each other laugh.
Hi, Jack. Mary and Whoopi Goldberg were not friends. They probably respected each other's talent, but they had little in common, and Mary had difficulty with much of Whoopi's style of work, on and off camera. Whoopi did send a lovely floral arrangement to Mary's funeral.
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Sue Sue Applegate
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

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Cute photo of Whoopi and Mary! It is sweet to know that Whoopi sent flowers to her funeral. :lol:
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

JackFavell wrote: Where in St. Louis did she live, and how long did she maintain a home there? My father is from there, and constantly talks about the many stars who lived there, like Vincent Price (who was friends with Mary) and Frank Faylen. Did she ever teach at the colleges there?
You've identified two of Mary's great loves -- St. Louis and teaching.

Mary was born in 1910 and grew up in North St. Louis, around O'Fallon Park and Fairground Park. Her parents moved several times while Mary was a girl, but always in the same area, an industrious area of German and Irish immigrants and working class families. When the family moved in 1929 to the decidedly more upscale Ames Place so that Mary could walk to classes at Washington University, it was a grand step up -- so much so that Mary forever after spoke of this home as where she grew up. The home, at 6830 Pershing Ave., remains standing, and its owners graciously let me explore it in my research. Status was important to Mary: She distanced herself from the less prosperous and later racially troubled North St. Louis in all ways possible; it was as if she had been born in 1929, her last year in college. In Mary's many, many visits to her hometown, she never returned to North St. Louis and never spoke of it.

She loved teaching. She was Washington University's first artist in residence, and returned several times to teach seminars. She also taught at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and at the College of San Mateo, Calif. She was quick to point out that she did not teach "comic acting" but "acting in comedy."
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

Sue Sue Applegate wrote: who was Mary Wickes' agent? Did she have a long, fruitful relationship with someone professionally as a representative?
Interesting question. Mary had many, many agents over the years, including some of the best known in the business, like (early in her career) Lew Wasserman and Edie Van Cleve of MCA, the Louis Schurr Agency and Bill Leibling of Liebling Wood. But Mary never trusted agents to advocate properly for her, felt she knew best how to promote herself, so she dismissed agents regularly; her agents in the last years of her life are too numerous to mention. She suffered for this -- had she been able to trust an agent to represent her in contractual negotiations, she surely would have made more money than she did.
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

rollyson wrote: Steve, I know you say a little about this in your book, but could say more about why you decided to write a book about Mary Wickes?
Nice to see you here, Carl :) I've always been drawn to strong, independent supporting women players on film, but something about Mary especially resonated with me. Her persona as an outsider -- intimately part of whatever was taking place in a scene, but not really *of* it -- demanded attention. That caustic, sarcastic voice that cut through whatever hypocrisy might be at play by winking at the audience – it was a treasure to me. All of that, plus, she worked with everybody who was anybody for 60 years, leaving her mark on stage, film, TV and radio at seminal moments of each medium.
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mongoII
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by mongoII »

Hi Steve, and welcome to the Silver Screen Oasis. It's a pleasure having you here.
No doubt that Mary Wickes is one of my favorite character actresses.
I've enjoyed what I read so far and I would like to know if Ms. Wickes had a companion after her mother past away?
Also were there some of her contemporaries that she didn't particularly care for?
Thank you.
Mongo aka Joe
Joseph Goodheart
Steve_Taravella

Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

oscotto wrote: What came as the biggest surprise about Wickes while doing your research? Was there anything that still puzzles you about her?
Hi, Oscotto. I guess several things surprised me. First, that Mary was really an exceptional writer. She saved numerous scripts, playlets and essays that she wrote; reading them, I found myself laughing out loud in the archive where her papers are kept. Her writing affected me in the same way the essays of David Sedaris or Paul Rudnick do -- clever situational observations.

Second, because so many of her characters were essentially lovable, even if underneath a rough exterior, I was surprised to discover how harsh she could be. Mary was often abrasive and rude, even to those she loved; in fact, sometimes, especially to those she loved.

Third, I was stunned to uncover the existence of a close blood relative whom Mary ignored her whole life. My book discloses, for the first time, that Mary, who claimed to have very few relatives, did in fact have a first cousin, a charming man in Ohio. From childhood, he had wanted more information about his family history, but he learned that Mary was his (only) first cousin when contacted for this book at age 87. He had never been able to learn where his mother, who died when he was a toddler, was buried; Mary, meanwhile, visited her grave regularly, in a location he could never have guessed. She knew about him her entire life but lived as if he never existed. Family mysteries run deep, and I hadn't expected to find one here.
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Re: The Q & A with Mary Wickes Biographer, Steve Taravella

Post by Steve_Taravella »

mongoII wrote: I would like to know if Ms. Wickes had a companion after her mother passed away? Joe
Hi, Joe. Mary's mother died in 1965; after that, Mary nurtured a sense of family by surrounding herself with close friends, among them Lucille Ball, Vincent Price, Max Showalter and Peter Walker. If you mean companion in the romantic sense, no. Mary led a life absent of any sexual activity. She had many male "escorts" whose company she genuinely enjoyed -- actor Kendall Clark, producer/director Alan Handley and writer Bill Givens among them -- but these men had no romantic interest in Mary.
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