The More (Mary Wickes), the Merrier (I am)

John recently watched the classic animated Disney film 101 Dalmatians. I hadn't seen it in a long time, so I sat down to watch with him.

As the credits were starting up, I noticed the name Mary Wickes, and I got excited because I love that actress.

For people who do not recognize the name, she played the 'grumpy' nun  Sister Mary Lazarus in the Sister Act movies:

as well as Sister Clarissa in The Trouble with Angels, which is one of my favorites:

Great Aunt March in the 1994 version of Little Women, another favorite,

as well as the ballet instructor in one of my favorite episodes of I Love Lucy:

She also appears in a couple episodes of Punky Brewster (as a nun again in one episode!), but I wasn't able to find any stills from those episodes.

Anyways, I kept waiting to hear her distinctive voice, but it never came. So I did some research to figure out why she was credited if she didn't seem to be IN the movie at all, and I found out some interesting trivia.

Mary Wickes was the real life model for Cruella DeVille!

   

Disney animators use real life actors as models as they draw, but I never knew that she did that.

I love to sing the song "Cruella DeVille" to Johnny now, and now whenever I sing it, I can picture one of my favorite,  often overlooked, actresses.