Whoopi Goldberg, to her fellow nuns in "Sister Act": "Don't worry, we'll always be together."
Mary Wickes, in reply: "That's what Diana Ross said."Mary Wickes has been trading wisecracks with the best in the business for 50 years - from Monty Wooley in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" to Whoopi Goldberg in the current "Sister Act." In between were Abbott & Costello, Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Jack Lemmon, Glenn Ford, Doris Day, Bette Davis and many others."Well, I can't say it hasn't been fun," Wickes said in a telephone interview from her hometown, St. Louis, Mo., where she was visiting friends while publicizing the film.
"Sister Act," a film from Disney's Touchstone Pictures, stars Whoopi Goldberg as a Reno lounge singer who witnesses a murder and is placed by the witness protection program in a San Francisco convent - as a nun. The senior member of the order is Sister Mary Lazarus, played by Wickes, complete with her usual sardonic asides.
Although she has had roles in more than 40 films (not to mention countless stage productions and TV shows - she was the housekeeper on "The Father Dowling Mysteries"), Wickes admits she might have made many more if she weren't so picky. "I won't be in movies that I don't approve of. I don't do anything I think is in bad taste. Not that I'm a reformer or anything. If somebody writes a script like that, fine, just don't ask me. I just turned down a TV pilot that had too much bathroom humor. I'm uncomfortable with that stuff."
But she liked "Sister Act." "I liked the whole feel of the film. It was just good entertainment, with a great deal of heart. It was a funny situation and they got really good people to do it.
"There is one murder (in the film), but you don't see it done - you hear a shot offscreen. You can take the children, the family, and I like that. That makes me comfortable."
As for Goldberg: "She's funny. I really loved working with her." But Wickes says she was never aware of the backstage battles on the film until they surfaced in the press. Goldberg was reportedly unhappy with what she perceived as racial stereotypes in the script and had a feud with Disney Studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg. "We were never conscious of it on the set. I never even met Katzenberg. It was apparently over script problems. Maybe I'm just goofy, but there was certainly nothing on the set in the way of arguments."
When she's not performing, Wickes spends her time doing volunteer work at the UCLA Medical Center, where she's on the board of directors. "It helps you keep things in perspective - working with patients, just giving them an ear to listen to. I wish more people would do it.
"I have a lot of friends who are not in (show) business. I'm delighted that my friends are successful, but I have other things."
Wickes had more anecdotes about the many legendary stars she's worked with over the years than there was time to discuss, but here are a few tidbits:
- Bud Abbott & Lou Costello. Wickes made two pictures with the slapstick comedy team, one of their first, "Who Done It?" in 1942, and their last, "Dance With Me, Henry" (1959), when the team was in decline. She prefers to remember the former.
"They were really big then, you know, the top box-office draw. I had just done `The Man Who Came to Dinner,' and my agent said Universal Pictures wanted to do a screen test with me and Abbott and Costello.
"Well, I had never done one - in fact, it's the only time I've ever had to do a screen test. And after `The Man Who Came to Dinner,' I was very hoity-toity about the whole thing. But they wanted to do an ad lib test to see if I could keep up with them. It was a country fair kissing booth, and they came along and started ad libbing a scene, and I guess I did all right. I got the job.
"They filmed it, of course, but I haven't seen it since we did it. It would be interesting to see if Universal still has that stored away somewhere."
- Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, in "White Christmas" (1954), which has become an annual video and TV staple during the holidays.
"We were on that picture for 14 weeks. Bing and Danny, and, of course, Rosie Clooney and Vera-Ellen. We all really enjoyed each other. Bing was wonderful, such a dry sense of humor. Danny I didn't get to know very well. His part was supposed to go to Donald O'Connor, but he got sick and Danny came in to replace him at the last minute."
- Glenn Ford, with whom she worked on the Navy comedy "Don't Go Near the Water" (1957) and the remake of the Western epic "Cimarron" (1960).
"Glenn Ford was a nice man, but he was harder to get to know. We did `Cimarron,' one of the hundreds of versions of that story. Glenn was like some of those other macho men who will not use a double, and that's just stupid. In the Oklahoma land-rush scene, Glenn insisted on doing it himself. Well, his horse stepped in a buggy wheel - and we had to shut down for a while while he recovered. But he couldn't have been more agreeable. I read that he's been sick; I hope he recovers OK."
- Spencer Tracy, in "The Actress" (1953).
"Well, Spencer Tracy, now there you're talking. He was the greatest. And he's so good in that picture."
- Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, in "Postcards From the Edge."
"Meryl Streep is just one of the girls. She's very cute and I loved her. Shirley, of course, I'd known for a long time. She's a real pro. She just does it, and she does it so well. We had a lot of fun doing that picture."
- Maggie Smith, in "Sister Act."
"Dame Maggie Smith, who is in this picture, and whom I've admired for so long - we got to know one another very well and had a great time together."
Asked what advice she might offer to younger performers, in particular those just starting out, Wickes quickly responds, "The first thing you have to be is stay healthy, or you can't get on the bus to go to the audition. And you can't just do what you think, you have to learn how to take direction. And how has she managed to last so long in show business? "Because I'm so good," she says with a hearty laugh. "No, no, I have no idea. I'm very particular. I won't take it on somebody's say-so. I refuse as many as I do, because I don't like the subject matter.
"But, you know, I could do other things. Acting isn't my whole life."