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LOS ANGELES - Alice Ghostley, the Tony Award-winning actress best known on television for playing Esmeralda on "Bewitched" and Bernice on "Designing Women," has died. She was 81.
Ghostley died Friday at her home in Studio City after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes, longtime friend Jim Pinkston said.
Ghostley made her Broadway debut in "Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952." She received critical acclaim for singing "The Boston Beguine," which became her signature song.
Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, said part of Ghostley's charm was that she was not glamorous.
"She was rather plain and had a splendid singing voice, and the combination of the well-trained, splendid singing voice and this kind of dowdy homemaker character was so incongruous and so charming," Kreuger said.
In the 1960s, Ghostley received a Tony nomination for various characterizations in the Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part" and eventually won for best featured actress in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window."
From 1969 to 1972, she played the good witch and ditzy housekeeper Esmeralda on TV's "Bewitched." She played Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women" from 1987 to 1993, for which she earned an Emmy nomination in 1992.
Ghostley's film credits include "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Graduate," "Gator" and "Grease."
She was born on Aug. 14, 1926, in Eve, Mo., where her father worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Okla.
After graduating from high school, Ghostley attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out and moved to New York with her sister to pursue theater.
"The best job I had then was as a theater usher," she said in a 1990 Boston Globe interview. "I saw the plays for free. What I saw before me was a visualization of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be."
She was well aware of the types of roles she should pursue.
"I knew I didn't look like an ingenue," she told The Globe. "My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn't blond. I knew I looked like a character actress.
"But I also knew I'd find a way," she added.
Ghostley, whose actor husband, Felice Orlandi, died in 2003, is survived by her sister, Gladys.
Ghostley died Friday at her home in Studio City after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes, longtime friend Jim Pinkston said.
Ghostley made her Broadway debut in "Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952." She received critical acclaim for singing "The Boston Beguine," which became her signature song.
Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, said part of Ghostley's charm was that she was not glamorous.
"She was rather plain and had a splendid singing voice, and the combination of the well-trained, splendid singing voice and this kind of dowdy homemaker character was so incongruous and so charming," Kreuger said.
In the 1960s, Ghostley received a Tony nomination for various characterizations in the Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part" and eventually won for best featured actress in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window."
From 1969 to 1972, she played the good witch and ditzy housekeeper Esmeralda on TV's "Bewitched." She played Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women" from 1987 to 1993, for which she earned an Emmy nomination in 1992.
Ghostley's film credits include "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Graduate," "Gator" and "Grease."
She was born on Aug. 14, 1926, in Eve, Mo., where her father worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Okla.
After graduating from high school, Ghostley attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out and moved to New York with her sister to pursue theater.
"The best job I had then was as a theater usher," she said in a 1990 Boston Globe interview. "I saw the plays for free. What I saw before me was a visualization of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be."
She was well aware of the types of roles she should pursue.
"I knew I didn't look like an ingenue," she told The Globe. "My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn't blond. I knew I looked like a character actress.
"But I also knew I'd find a way," she added.
Ghostley, whose actor husband, Felice Orlandi, died in 2003, is survived by her sister, Gladys.
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Re: Esmeralda Has Passed Away
Sat, September 22, 2007 - 1:13 PMWow. I think this only leaves Dr Bombay, The Tabithas and the Adams as surviving cast members.
WIKI BIO
Alice Ghostley (August 14, 1926 – September 21, 2007)[1] was a Tony Award-winning American actress. She was best known for her roles as Bernice Clifton on Designing Women (Emmy Nomination, Best Supporting Actress; 1992), as "Esmeralda" on Bewitched, and as "Cousin Alice" on Mayberry R.F.D..
Television
A veteran of early television, Ghostley appeared as one of the ugly step-sisters in the landmark 1957 musical television production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Cinderella, which starred Julie Andrews in the title role. Ghostley's character, ironically named Joy, was paired with Kaye Ballard as the other stepsister, Portia.
Ghostley portrayed several well-known recurring characters on situation comedies, beginning with Esmeralda, a shy witch who served as a maid and babysitter to the Stephens household beginning in season six of Bewitched. The character appeared in fifteen episodes, and is best known for her invisibility and for sneezes that produced unexpected magical effects. Ghostley had previously guest starred once as another character, Naomi, on the show's second season.[2] During this period she also joined the cast of Mayberry R.F.D., playing "Cousin Alice" after Frances Bavier's character ("Aunt Bee") was written off the series.
Between 1986 and 1993, Ghostley portrayed Bernice Clifton on Designing Women, a kind but ditzy friend and client to the Sugarbakers. She later played "Irna Wallingsford" in six episodes of Evening Shade. Among many other guest starring roles, she appeared in a flashback episode as the crazed mother-in-law of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) on The Golden Girls.
Stage
Ghostley first came to Broadway in Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952 (which included Paul Lynde and Eartha Kitt) and in the film version released in 1954. She appeared in the 1960 revue A Thurber Carnival and in The Beauty Part (1962), playing several distinct roles in each. She also performed in several musical comedies, including Shangri-La (1956).
She won the 1965 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Mavis Parodus Bryson in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. In 1978 she succeeded Dorothy Loudon, who had created the role of "Miss Hannigan" in the original Broadway run of the musical Annie.
Film
Among her forays into motion pictures, Ghostley appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), playing "Aunt Stephanie Crawford". She also appeared in the film version of Grease as shop teacher "Mrs. Murdock" (a role which does not exist in the Broadway version of the stage version).
Ghostley and Marion Lorne had cameos in one scene of 1967's The Graduate at the hotel where Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin have their first tryst. Ironically, on Bewitched, Ghostley's character, Esmeralda, was brought in to try to fill the void after Lorne, who played "Aunt Clara", died suddenly in 1968
Personal
She was born on Aug. 14, 1926, in Eve, Mo., where her father worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Okla. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out to pursue a career in theatre.
Ghostley was married to Felice Orlandi, an Italian-American actor, for fifty years (from 1953 until his death from lung cancer on May 21, 2003); they had no children.
Alice at IMDB
www.imdb.com/name/nm0315933/
Alice at IBDB
www.ibdb.com/person.asp
Alice at Great Character Actors
www.dougmacaulay.com/kingspu...ex_2.php
The Bewitched Tribe
elizabethmontgomery.tribe.net/
OBIT at NY TImes
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22...ostley.html
Images 2 from Bewitched, 1 a Designing Women promo shot and upper right corner Alice in The Graduate.
