Veteran comic actress Alice Ghostley is dead at the age of 81. Her film and television credits include just about everything.
That's almost not an exaggeration. Here's a link to her page at the Internet Movie Database and I doubt it's a tenth complete. She appeared in dozens of movies including The Graduate, Grease and To Kill a Mockingbird. She was a regular or semi-regular on more than two dozen TV series and guested on hundreds of others. Quite often, she was someone who was brought in when a show wasn't doing so well. One of my former writing partners used to refer to something he called The Alice Ghostley Rule. It was that you know a series is in trouble when they add Alice Ghostley to the cast.
That was no slam at her; quite the opposite. She was called in because she was guaranteed laughs and, they hoped, money in the bank. It usually didn't save the show but that was never her fault. She was always terrific.
And the I.M.D.B. listing doesn't even include her work on the stage. She won a Tony in 1965 and had been nominated before that. But somewhere in the I.M.D.B., they do mention a cartoon series where I directed her. Let me tell you — not that it'll do you any good now — how you "direct" Alice Ghostley. You hand Alice Ghostley the script and then you let her just be Alice Ghostley. It was always fine.
Alice was much-loved by her peers…and imitated. Paul Lynde used to freely admit that he copped much (sometimes, he said all) of his comic delivery from the lovely Ghostley. They both got famous appearing in the legendary revue, Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952. I had the best and easiest time working with her. She was just so good at being Alice Ghostley.
Here's a link to the L.A. Times obit and here's a link to the N.Y. Times obit.