Mary Wickes

Her final film, the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released posthumously in 1996. Brendon, who suffered a problem with stuttering when younger, has served as the honorary chairperson of the Stuttering Foundation of America's Stuttering Awareness Week. Hospitalised in 1995, Wickes died after surgery for cancer. He has an identical twin brother, Kelly Donovan, who has served as his stunt double and played the part of Xander in scenes in which Xander has been duplicated. She appeared in the 1994 film version of Little Women before she became ill. Nicholas Brendon (born April 12, 1971) is an actor, born Nicholas Brendon Schultz, best known for playing the character Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As Sister Mary Lazarus, Wickes' portrayal of a gruff but vulnerable elderly nun, contributed to the film's popularity, and she reprised the role in the sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993).

Her appearance in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge brought her attention, however she achieved the biggest success of her career in Sister Act (1992). By the 1980s her appearances in television series such as M*A*S*H, The Love Boat, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Murder, She Wrote had made her a widely recognisable character actress. She appeared in a children's televison show called Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. A lifelong friend of Lucille Ball, she played frequent guest roles in each of Ball's television series, I Love Lucy, Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show.

In the 1950s she played regular roles in the television sitcoms Make Room for Daddy and Dennis The Menace, as well as appearing as Emma the housekeeper in the holiday classic White Christmas (1954, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) and providing her voice to the Walt Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). She continued playing supporting roles in films during the next decade. The same year she had a large part in the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy-whodunnit, titled Who Done It?. A tall, gangling woman with a distinctive voice, Wickes would ultimately prove herself adept as a comedienne, but she first attracted attention in the film Now, Voyager (1942), as the wise-cracking nurse who helped Bette Davis' character during her mother's illness.

One of her earliest significant film appearances was in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942). Louis, Missouri, Wickes began acting in films in the late 1930s. Born Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Mary Wickes (June 13, 1910 - October 22, 1995) was a United States film and television actress.