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A Vernon County daughter who went far leaves memorable legacy
Yes, she went far. But no wonder. She was, after all, born in a railroad station.
Back in the Bush-whacker Museum's first year, an actress named Alice Ghostley chanced to mention on a television talk show that she was born in a railroad depot at Eve, Mo.
Instantly, Joe Kraft, the ever-alert founding spirit of the museum, pounced on this writer, its corresponding secretary: Hop to it! Get in touch with that woman! We'll sweet-talk her into financing moving that depot into the museum's back yard!
To hear was to obey. Dutifully, I wrote to Alice Ghostley in care of the likeliest sounding place. And surprisingly, right back came an answer, a leisurely handwritten letter, friendly and enthusiastic -- though, alas, saying nothing about putting any money where the enthusiasm was, a possibility that had been very delicately woven into the initial approach.
Then the enthusiasm balloon deflated on our end when it was learned that the depot of Alice's nativity no longer existed (Eve being one of the few Vernon County communities to have two railroad depots: Katy and Kansas City Southern).
What with my usual punctilious scholarly concern for cataloging and filing every scrap of paper, all but down to the toilet kind... er, yes, that precious piece of authentic Ghostleana sort of mislaid or lost itself. The search goes on, but with dwindling hopes.
Meanwhile (or rather more recently), back at the ranch (or rather the Museum), one John Graham telephoned coordinator Terry Ramsey from southern California. Alice Ghostley had died in September 2007, at the age of 84, leaving her estate, including her career memorabilia, in the hands of Graham, her longtime friend. "I set my goal to finding a loving home for it," he wrote of the material he soon sent, "where it can be properly preserved and archived and made available to the public. Your museum will perform all these tasks, I am certain."
The big bundle Graham forwarded included many of Alice's family and career photos and papers, playbills and other show business ephemera.
"I have 30 binders of additional memorabilia and photos from her career," he added. "I do have her Tony award, and would be willing to loan that to you for display purposes, along with several other priceless items."
Plans are for a season-long "temporary exhibit" for the museum's 2009 season. Museum folks like the idea, and are looking forward to an "Alice Ghostley Retrospec-tive."
Who, you ask, was Alice Ghostley? Well, being a fan neither of Broadway nor of sitcoms and talk shows, I wouldn't know the answer either, but for that long-ago swap of letters. Thereafter I occasionally spotted her in a television comedy role, but I never came to learn much about her career overall, nor realized how "virtuosic" it truly was.
In the early 1920s Alice's father brought the family from Minnesota down to Eve, where he pursued his occupation of railway telegrapher, and where Alice was born in 1923. The augmented nomadic family soon moved on, eventually settling, in Henryetta, Okla., long enough for Alice to graduate from high school there.
At age 18 she went to New York, where she took an unlikely job with a detective agency, followed by a stint as "the slowest typist in the history of Life Magazine."
She took her first step into show biz, as a moviehouse cashier, and became acquainted with famed opera teacher Eleanor McClellan. Her only formal training was this, in operatic singing, and her first professional engagements were as a nightclub singer. In the late 1940s and 50s she also played "pre-Broadway," mostly singing and comedy roles. From 1952 to 1958 she was in summer stock, and into Broadway itself. In 1953 she met actor Felice Orlandi (love at first sight, she said). Unless you count their 50-year marriage, they performed together only once.
One of Alice's stage successes was "Nunsense," which she was still playing in various theatres as late as 1993. Dividing her time between Broadway, television, and Hollywood, she appeared in 20 movies, including "To Kill A Mockingbird," "The Grad-uate," "Viva Max," and "Grease." She made guest appearances on countless sitcoms, and scored big as Esmeralda on "Bewitched" and as Bernice on "Designing Women," which ran from 1986 to 1991. She won two Tony awards for Best Supporting Actress, and was nominated for a third.
Reportedly Eve had a population of 60 at the time Alice was born there. Presumably the family lived in the station, a common practice of telegraphers.
Just when the Kansas City Southern depot was dismantled isn't clear, but it was already gone when this writer corresponded with Alice in the mid-1960s. The Katy depot still stood, if just barely. Abandoned and badly dilapidated, it soon went the way of its twin.
Alice's feeling for the unusual place of her birth is attested in a photo Graham sent, showing the interior of Alice's apartment in Studio City, California -- with a big blowup of the Eve depot to be seen up over the mantel!
To those who knew Alice Ghostley only from her work, she was a memorable character, regarded with admiration and affection.
Though she "hated to be called a comedienne," seeing herself rather as "an actress who can do comedy," she was best known and doubtless will be best remembered for her comedy roles.
Her comedic technique was unclassifiable, and had to be seen to be understood and appreciated. Somehow she projected that life after all was a good-natured comedy, and the best way to get through it was with laughter, especially at oneself.