Joan Shawlee (March 5, 1926[2] – March 22, 1987), nee Joan Fulton (and also credited sometimes under that name, such as in the film noirWoman on the Run (1950)),[3] was an American film and television actress. She is known for her recurring role as "Pickles" in The Dick Van Dyke Show, a career-defining turn in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) playing Sweet Sue, the abrasive martinet in charge of Marilyn Monroe's all-girl jazz band, and as the flamboyant Madame Pompey in the 1957 Maverick episode "Stampede" with James Garner.
Shawlee was born in Forest Hills, New York to Theodore Cuyler Fulton, an automobile salesman, and Esther L. Ring Fulton,[4] and she moved with her parents and two brothers Theodore Cuyler Fulton Jr and Albert Fulton to Vancouver[5] when she was five years old.[6]
In the early 1960s, Shawlee and actress Mitzi McCall teamed up as a night club act.[6] They opened at the Club Robaire in Cleveland.[10] In January 1961, syndicated newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported that the team was "causing quite a stir", while drawing attention to -- and exaggerating -- their discrepancy in height: "Joan being six feet, three inches tall and Mitzi four feet, 10 inches short."[11]
Personal lifeedit
She was married twice. Her first husband was Walter Shawlee, a printing executive. They had a son, Walter, and divorced in 1956. Her second husband, Eddie Barchet, was a resort hotel manager she met in England and with whom she lived in California.[12] She and Barchet had a daughter, Angela.[6]
^ abFolkart, Burt A. (March 31, 1987). "Joan Shawlee; Busy Actress in Zany Comedies". Los Angeles Times.
^Joan Shawlee's date of birth, familysearch.org; accessed February 14, 2016.
^"Actress Joan Shawlee Dies of Cancer at 58 [sic]". The Associated Press. March 31, 1987. Miss Shawlee, who also had acted under the name of Joan Fulton ... changed her professional name after her marriage to businessman Walter Shawlee.
^"Joan Fulton". My Heritage. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
^Wooster Chapter. J. T. Brown. 1917. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^ abcd"Joan Shawlee Sparkles Like a Spring Tonic". The Boston Globe. April 30, 1961. p. 65. Retrieved September 21, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Joyce Ring". Internet Broadway Database. Archived from the original on September 22, 2018. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
^Heffernan, Harold (November 9, 1950). "12 New Film Beauties Selected For Musical". The Blade. Toledo, Ohio.
^ abcdeTerrace, Vincent (January 10, 2014). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 (2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-7864-6477-7.
^"They're Back". Los Angeles Times. California, Los Angeles. October 20, 1960. p. 54. Retrieved September 22, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
^Kilgallen, Dorothy (January 7, 1961). "The Voice of Broadway". The Mercury. Pottstown, Pennsylvania. p. 4. Retrieved September 22, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
^Motion Picture and Television Magazine. November 1952. page 33. Ideal Publishers.
^Morning News, January 10, 1948, Who Was Who in America (Vol. 2)
^Wilson, Scott (August 19, 2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3d ed.). McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2599-7 – via Google Books.