Alice Ghostley

Whether portraying a glum, withering wallflower, a drab and dowdy housewife, a klutzy maid or a cynical gossip, eccentric character comedienne Alice Ghostley had the ability to draw laughs from the skimpiest of material with a simple fret or whine. Making a name for herself on the Tony-winning Broadway stage, her eternally forlorn looks later evolved as an amusingly familiar plain-Jane presence on TV sitcoms and in an occasional film or two during the 50s, 60s,70s, 80's and 90's. Alice was born in a whistle-stop railroad station in the tiny town of Eve, Missouri, where her father was employed as a telegraph operator. She grew up in various towns in the Midwest (Arkansas, Oklahoma) and began performing from the age of 5 where she was called upon to recite poetry, sing and tap-dance. Spurred on by a high school teacher, she studied drama at the University of Oklahoma but eventually left in order to pursue a career in New York with her sister Gladys. Teaming together in an act called "The Ghostley Sisters", Alice eventually went solo and developed her own cabaret show as a singer and comedienne. She also toiled as a secretary to a music teacher in exchange for singing lessons, worked as a theater usherette in order to see free stage shows, paid her dues as a waitress, worked once for a detective agency, and even had a stint as a patch tester for a detergent company. No glamour puss by any stretch of the imagination, she built her reputation as a singing funny lady. The short-statured, auburn-haired entertainer received her star-making break singing the satirical ditty The Boston Beguine in the Broadway stage revue New Faces of 1952, which also showcased up-and-coming stars Maggie Smith, Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, Hogan's Heroes co-star Robert Clary and Paul Lynde to whom she would be invariably compared to what with their similarly comic demeanors. The film version of New Faces (1954) featured pretty much the same cast. She and "male counterpart" Lynde would appear together in the same films and/or TV shows over the years. With this momentum started, she continued on Broadway with the short-lived musicals Sandhog (1954) featuring Jack Cassidy, Trouble in Tahiti (1955), Shangri-La (1956), again starring Jack Cassidy, and the legit comedy Maybe Tuesday (1958). A reliable sketch artist, she fared much better on stage in the 1960s playing a number of different characterizations in both A Thurber Carnival (1960), and opposite Bert Lahr in The Beauty Part (1962), for which she received a Tony nomination. She finally nabbed the Tony trophy as "featured actress" for her wonderful work as Mavis in the comedy play The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965).

By this time Alice had established herself on TV. She and good friend Kaye Ballard stole much of the proceedings as the evil stepsisters in the classic Julie Andrews version of Cinderella (1957), Twelve years later, Ghostley guest-starred as a harried maternity nurse on Ballard's comedy series, The Mothers-in-Law and she also recreated her Broadway role in a small screen adaptation of Shangri-La (1960), Although it was mighty hard to take away her comedy instincts, she did appear in a TV production of Twelfth Night as Maria opposite future Bewitched co-star Maurice Evans' Malvolio, and graced such dramatic programs as Perry Mason and Naked City, as well as the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). She kept herself in the TV limelight as a frequent panelist on such game shows as The Hollywood Squares and The Match Game. Ghostley guest-starred on the NBC police comedy, Car 54, Where Are You?, with Joe E. Ross and Fred Gwynne. She portrayed recurring characters on several sitcoms, beginning with Bewitched in 1966 in "Maid To Order", in which Ghostley played an inept maid named Naomi, who was hired by Darrin Stephens (played by Dick York) to assist his wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) during her pregnancy. Towards the end of the 1965–66 season, actress-comedian Alice Pearce, who was featured as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched, died. The producers of the series immediately offered the role of Gladys to Ghostley, who refused it. As a result, in the fall of 1966, character actress Sandra Gould assumed the role of Gladys. In September 1969, after the death of actress Marion Lorne, who played Aunt Clara, Ghostley joined Bewitched as a semiregular in the role of Esmeralda, a shy witch who served as a maid and babysitter to the Stephens' household. Ghostley's character of Esmeralda was created to replace Aunt Clara's role as a bumbler of magic. (Coincidentally, Ghostley and Lorne shared a brief scene together in the 1967 film The Graduate, a few months prior to Lorne's death and before Ghostley was cast in Bewitched.) Ghostley's Esmeralda appeared in 15 episodes of Bewitched between 1969 and 1972. During her two years on Bewitched, Ghostley also joined the cast of Mayberry R.F.D. playing Cousin Alice after Frances Bavier's character, Aunt Bee, was written out of the series. She appeared in 14 episodes. After eight years, Bewitched was cancelled by ABC in the spring of 1972.

She was a regular on Nichols (1971–72) with James Garner. Later that year in September, Ghostley was hired as a semiregular for the ABC-TV variety series, The Julie Andrews Hour; in addition to participating in songs and sketches, Andrews and Ghostley were featured in a recurring segment as roommates sharing a small apartment. The Julie Andrews Hour was cancelled by ABC in the spring of 1973 after 24 episodes. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ghostley appeared in episodes of situation comedies such as Hogan's Heroes (alternating with Kathleen Freeman playing Gertrude Linkmaier, General Burkhalter's sister), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Get Smart, Love, American Style, The New Temperatures Rising Show again with Paul Lynde, Good Times, Maude, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, The Nancy Walker Show, Chico and the Man, Gimme a Break! One Day at a Time, The Odd Couple, What's Happening!, The New Leave It to Beaver, Punky Brewster, Small Wonder and Evening Shade. She also had roles in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Monster Squad, CHiPS, Family, Police Woman, Tales from the Darkside, Diagnosis Murder, Simon & Simon and Touched by an Angel.

Between 1986 and 1993, Ghostley portrayed Bernice Clifton, the slightly off-kilter, eccentric friend of Julia and Suzanne Sugarbaker's mother, Perky, on Designing Women. She was nominated for an Emmy as best supporting for the role. She appeared in a flashback episode as the crazed mother-in-law of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) on The Golden Girls. She made a one-time appearance as Great-Grandma in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Ghostley also made a few guest appearances on the daytime drama Passions in 2000, playing the ghost of Matilda Matthews. In film she was in My Six Loves (1963) with Debbie Reynolds, The Flim-Flam Man (1967) with George C. Scott, With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) with Doris Day, Viva Max (1969) with Peter Ustinov, Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies (1973) which was based on a story by Steven Spielberg, she was a scene stealer as a crazy cat lady that helps Burt Reynolds in Gator (1976), the cult horror film Blue Sunshine (1977), Joan Rivers' directorial debut Rabbit Test (1978) which reteamed her with Paul Lynde, she appeared in the film version of Grease (1978) as shop teacher Mrs. Murdock, Paul Bartel's Not for Publication (1984) with Nancy Allen and Judge Reinhold, The Odd Couple II (1998) with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and the direct-to-video movie Addams Family Reunion (1998) in which she played Grandmama Addams.

In 1978, she succeeded Dorothy Loudon, who had created the role of Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of the musical Annie. Alice would play the mean-spirited scene-stealer on and off for nearly a decade in various parts of the country. Other musicals during this time included Take Me Along, Bye, Bye Birdie (as the overbearing mother), and the raucous revue Nunsense. Ghostley was married to Felice Orlandi, an Italian American actor, from 1953 until his death in 2003. Ghostley died at her home in Studio City, California, on September 21, 2007, after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes. She accepted the Best Actress Oscar in 1969 on Maggie Smith's behalf for Ms. Smith's performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Ms. Smith was in London on Academy Awards night, and Ms. Ghostley filled in since the two actresses had previously starred together on Broadway in New Faces of 1956 and stayed close friends. In an interview with the Boston Globe in 1990, she was quoted as saying "When I first started out, I had this natural ability to sing. That was another reason why I chose New York, with all the musicals that were happening at the time. But I looked so different from everyone else. I was never what you would call an ingénue. I was having difficulty finding jobs. Get your eyes straightened, they would tell me, and maybe we can work with you."