Film

Mary as Miss Preen with Monty Woolley in "The Man Who Came to Dinner".

Mary as Bonnie-Belle Schlopkiss with Shemp Howard in "Private Buckaroo".

Mary as Emma Allen, the housekeeper, in "White Christmas".

Mary as the live action model for Cruella De Vil in "One Hundred and One Dalmatians".

Mary with other cast members as Mrs. Squires in The Music Man.

Sheet music from "Sister Act".

Mary as Sister Mary Lazarus with Whoopi Goldburg in "Sister Act".

Conceptual art from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mary gave voice to Laverne, the gargoyle on the far left.

    Mary performed in over 50 films through the course of her career. She reprised her signature theatrical role of Miss Preen when "The Man Who Came to Dinner" was adapted for film in 1942. It was a huge hit and launched Mary’s film career.
    As in her theater roles, she continued to play nuns, nurses, housekeepers, and other supporting characters. Some of her more well-known roles were in films such as "White Christmas", "The Trouble with Angels", "Now, Voyager", and "Sister Act".
    "Sister Act", released in 1992, was one of Mary’s more successful films. In the comedy, she played a sarcastic, aging nun—Sister Mary Lazarus, who is challenged by newcomer “Sister” Mary Clarence (Whoopi Goldberg), a lounge singer hiding from the mob. "Entertainment Weekly" said of her performance, “As Sister Mary Lazarus, the veteran comic Mary Wickes has a face so stern and pious she might have stepped out of "The Sound of Music", Every time she opens her mouth, though, a deadpan secularism comes out. Wickes incarnates what’s appealing about these nuns—that beneath their saintly manners and withered flesh, they’re terrifically alive.” For her role, Mary was nominated for the “Funniest Supporting Female in a Motion Picture” for the Seventh Annual American Comedy Awards.
    Although never a leading lady, Mary excelled in her supporting comic roles. Her career continues to blossom as she found roles in animated feature films. In 1961, Disney animators asked her to be a live action model for Cruella de Vil in "One Hundred and One Dalmatians". Her last role was as the voice of Laverne, the gargoyle, in the Disney animated feature "Hunchback of Notre Dame", released posthumously in 1996.