Ghostley last appeared on Broadway in "Annie," taking over the role of Miss Hannigan, the wicked orphanage supervisor, in 1978 and playing the part until 1983.ĭuring her show business career, she regularly moved between the stage, cabaret, movies and television. "But Alice was superior in everything she did. Alice was the epitome of class when it came to comedy. I feel humor has changed today everyone has mean humor. Ghostley, she said, "was gentle and she was sincere and she was kind and she never said a cruel thing about anyone - ever. If anyone was influenced, it was Paul who was influenced by Alice." "She was an exceptional actress," said Kaye Ballard, a longtime friend who appeared with Ghostley as the wicked stepsisters in a 1957 television production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella," starring Julie Andrews.Īlthough Ghostley was often compared to Paul Lynde, one of her "New Faces" co-stars, Ballard said Ghostley "was completely original. She also received a Tony nomination two years earlier for various characterizations in the 1962-63 Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part" with Bert Lahr. Ghostley won the Tony Award for best featured actress in a play in 1965 for "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window." "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." "There was nothing glamorous about her," he said. "She was just so wonderful," said Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, who saw "New Faces of 1952" repeatedly and recalls Ghostley singing "The Boston Beguine." Ghostley made her Broadway debut in "Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952," the hit revue in which she received critical acclaim for singing the satirical send-up "The Boston Beguine," which became her signature song. Ghostley died at her home in Studio City after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes, said Jim Pinkston, a longtime friend. I thought she was an old woman fifty years ago, when she was I now see only 31.Īlice Ghostley, 81 Tony Award-winning actressīy Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times Staff WriterĪlice Ghostley, the Tony Award-winning comedic actress and singer who specialized in playing ditsy ladies and was best known on television for her supporting roles as Esmeralda on "Bewitched" and Bernice on "Designing Women," died Friday. It was like she was born a 60-year old woman. The thing I always thought about Alice Ghostley was her indeterminate age.
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