Biographical note

Mary Wickes was born Mary Isabella Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri on June 13, 1910. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1930. She received the Distinguished Alumni Citation from Washington University in 1955. Later she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from Washington University in 1969. Wickes was an actress who had a long career on stage, in film, and on television in performances including Oklahoma!, Sister Act, and The Father Dowling Mysteries. She died in Los Angeles, California on October 22, 1995.

See also the transcript of Mary Wickes' 1988 Assembly Series Lecture for details about Mary Wickes' life and career.

Organization and arrangement

• Series 1: Stage Career, arranged alphabetically by name of play. Multiple productions of the same play are organized by city in which the play appeared. Includes scripts, photographs, programs, news clippings, and reviews.
• Series 2: Film Career, arranged alphabetically by title of the film. Includes scripts, photographs, programs, news clippings, and reviews. Some films in which Mary Wickes appeared are not represented.
• Series 3: Television Career, arranged alphabetically by name of the television show. Includes scripts, photographs, news clippings, and reviews. Many television shows in which Mary Wickes appeared are not represented.
• Series 4: Photographs and Scrapbooks - These photographs are mostly publicity shots of Wickes. The scrapbooks document Mary Wickes' growing up in St. Louis, her years at Washington University, and her early theatrical career, both in St. Louis and at the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
• Series 5: Washington University, arranged alphabetically by subject. Includes material from Mary Wickes' years as an undergraduate, her Distinguished Alumni Citation and honorary degree, and material related to her teaching at the University.
• Series 6: UCLA Material - Includes notes for her master’s thesis in Theater Arts and material related to her volunteer work at the UCLA Medical Center.
• Series 7: Professional Correspondence, arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent.
• Series 8: Personal and Professional Material - Includes biographical material, publicity, speeches, contracts, sheet music, correspondence, awards, and posters.
• Series 9: Genealogical - Correspondence and documents concerning MW's ancestors; also includes Wickes family photos, including childhood photos of Mary Wickes. (Publicity photos from Mary Wickes' acting career are found in Series 4.)
• Series 10: Personal Effects - This material includes jewelry, phone and address books, memorabilia, awards, and more.
• Series 11: Personal Library - Books from Mary Wickes’ library.
• Series 12: Audio-visual Material - Videotapes of programs in which Mary Wickes appeared; audio tapes of radio interviews; audio tapes of vocal coaching sessions; films; albums.

Restrictions on access and use

• Personal correspondence of Mary Wickes is closed until 2027 by request of the Trustee of the Mary Wickes Estate.
• The production stills in this collection are copyrighted works. The copyrights are held by the original creators and their successor agencies, not the estate of Mary Wickes, nor by Washington University. We will do everything we can to make photographs from the collection accessible to researchers while observing the copyright laws pertaining to photographs in the collection.

View the finding aid to the Mary Wickes Collection (PDF format)

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