Joan Shawlee
Joan Shawlee (March 5, 1926 – March 22, 1987), born and also credited as Joan Fulton, was an American film and television actress. She is known for her recurring role in "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Early years. Shawlee was born in Forest Hills, New York to Thomas Cuyler Fulton, an automobile salesman, and Esther L. Ring Fulton, and she moved with her parents and two brothers Theodore Cuyler Fulton Jr and Albert Fulton to Vancouver when she was five years old. Career. Dancing and modeling. 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. Billed as Joyce Ring, she appeared in the musical productions "By Jupiter" (1942) and "A Connecticut Yankee" (1943). Film. 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 Billy Wilder's final film, "Buddy Buddy" (1981), starring Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Television. Shawlee had a recurring role on TV in "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as Fiona "Pickles" Sorrell, wife of writer Maurice "Buddy" Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam). She played the lead in "The Adventures of Aggie" (1956–57), which only ran for one season. She played Lorna Peterson on Betty Hutton's short-lived series "Goldie"; Margo on the 1976–77 crime drama "The Feather and Father Gang"; and Tessie on "Joe's World". She was also a regular  on "The Abbott and Costello Show". 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. Comedy team. In the early 1960s, Shawlee and actress Mitzi McCall teamed up as a night club act. They opened at the Club Robaire in Cleveland. 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." Personal life. 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. She and Barchet had a daughter, Angela. Shawlee was a Democrat who was supportive of Adlai Stevenson's campaign during the 1952 presidential election. Death. Shawlee died of breast  cancer, in Hollywood, California, on March 22, 1987, aged 61. She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.