Alice Ghostley

[westie2]

Will finally be laid to rest this week. This is about a mile from our home.

http://www.nwanews.com/hl/2009/aug/16/hollywood-star-comes-home-good-20090816/

 

[spiceman1957]

Do you have a link or a picture of her?

I can't remember her character on Bewitched

 

[frigilux]

It's hard to find a picture of her that's of decent quality. This looks like it was taken from Bewitched. She was Aunt Esmerelda.

 

[autowasherfreak]

Is there anyone still alive from Bewitched? I liked her and Uncle Arthur. She was also in Designing Women.

 

[mixguy]

Ah Bernice

Funny haw they put about her "arteral flow" problem oh how she chased Anthony, "Black man! BLACK MAN!" it was humorous. Was never meant to be politically offensive.

 

[mixguy]

Esmerelda

The emergency baby sitter of Tabitha and Adam when Aunt Clara wasn't in the show any longer.

 

[dirtybuck]

Forget The "Aunt" Part...

She was Samantha's "yoo-hoo" maid, who's sneezes wreaked havoc on the Stephen's household (remember when she sneezed up Santa during his busiest time of year).

 

[whirlcool]

You are correct. Esmerelda was the maid and not a relative of Samantha. Just another witch that was their babysitter/maid.

Put Alice and Paul Lynde together and you always had a laugh riot on your hands.

 

[scott55405]

Wow, this is interesting. I was caught off guard at first as I thought she'd passed quite some time ago, so I read the article.

I looked it up on Mapquest since remember seeing the name "Siloam Springs" on signs when we'd go visit my aunt and uncle in the 70s.

 

[mrcleanjeans]

"Yessss, Mr. Stevennnnnns"

I was thinking the same thing. The "aunt" part was not correct.

 

[jeffg]

I knew Paul Lynde very well, in fact I met John (my first partner) through him in 1979. I was 19 and John was 31, and he was living with Lynde in Bev. Hills at the time.

 

[laundromat]

Paul used to visit "Mary's' a gay bar in baltimore quite frequently back in the late 70's. He was hystericaly funny when he had a few drinks.

 

[jeffg]

> He was hystericaly funny when he had a few drinks. <

Yes, and could be very nasty when he had more than a few. Eventually we lost track of how many times he was arrested for public intoxication and/or disturbance. He was bitter about a lot of things, some understandable and some not.

 

[whirlcool]

In Chicago in 1978 or so he attended an event at Northwestern as an alumni. Later he was in a McDonalds and caused quite a bit of havoc. It appears he was quite a biggoted person. He got started on some of the help that worked at McDonalds, calling them all kinds of nasty names. He ended up in jail for a few days over that one.

But right at the end, he tried to clean up his act, lose some weight and stop drinking. But alas, the damage had already been done. I heard he had the organs of an 80 year old man even though he was only 55 at the time.

I thought he was hilarious but if you watch him for any length of time it is apparent that he's the same person in all his roles, just the name of the roles change.

 

[autowasherfreak]

I've seen him in an episode of IDOJ.

 

[whirlcool]

that episode was on TV just last week. Paul Lynde played an IRS guy.

 

[bajaespuma]

The Graduate

If you look closely and are paying attention you will see Marion Lorne(Aunt Clara) and Alice Ghostley(Esmeralda)in an early scene in a hotel with Dustin Hoffman. Apparently Ghostley was a well-respected theatre actress by the time Television discovered her. May she rest in peace.

 

[jeffg]

Here's a clip from "Rabbit Test" with Ghostley and Lynde.

 

[whirlcool]

Now that I've seen that clip of Rabbit Test (directed by Joan Rivers) I realize that Alice Ghostley & Paul Lynde had the same kind of inflection in their delivered lines. Hmmm they both did start out together in the theater.