Joan Shawlee

Joan Shawlee (née Fulton;^[2] March 5, 1926^[3] – March 22, 1987) was an American film and television actress. She is known for her recurring role as Fiona "Pickles" Sorrell 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. She was sometimes credited under her birth name.

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, British Columbia^[5] when she was five years old.^[6]

Shawlee studied ballet under Ernest Belcher. At the age of fourteen, she began to work as a model for the John Robert Powers agency in New York, and worked later as a showgirl on Broadway.^[6] Billed as Joyce Ring, she appeared in the musical productions By Jupiter (1942) and A Connecticut Yankee (1943).^[7]

A tall woman (5'9"), she was known for small parts in Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder films. She is probably best remembered for her role as bandleader Sweet Sue in Some Like It Hot (1959) starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Lemmon. She appeared as Sylvia in The Apartment (1960), and as Amazon Annie in Irma la Douce, both of which starred Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. She also appeared in Wilder's final film, Buddy Buddy (1981).

Shawlee had a recurring role on TV in The Dick Van Dyke Show as Fiona "Pickles" Sorrell,^[8] wife of writer Maurice "Buddy" Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam). She played the lead in The Adventures of Aggie (1956–57), which ran for only one season.^[9]: 20 She played Lorna Peterson on Betty Hutton's short-lived series^[9]: 94 Goldie; Margo on the 1976–77 crime drama The Feather and Father Gang;^[9]: 338 and Tessie on Joe's World.^{[9]: 537–538} She was also a regular on The Abbott and Costello Show.^[9] She played a dead criminal's wife in Stories of the Century with Jim Davis and a 1957 episode of Maverick titled "Stampede", starring James Garner and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., in which she portrayed the exuberant Madame Pompey. Her final acting appearance was in an episode of Crazy Like a Fox in 1985.

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]

Shawlee and her second husband, Eddie Barchet, had a daughter, Angela.^[12][6]

Shawlee was a Democrat who was supportive of Adlai Stevenson's campaign during the 1952 presidential election.^[13] Shawlee was a practicing Episcopalian.^[14]

Shawlee died of breast cancer, in Hollywood, California, on March 22, 1987, aged 61.^[1] She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.^[15]

• Joan Shawlee at IMDb