Sometimes, a walk through Stone Gardens is a wandering, meandering journey that leads to a cemetery plot in our region that seemingly contains the mortal remains of someone without a connection to the area.
So it it is with an actress who had a fifty-plus year career on Broadway and in movies and television and found her final resting place in a Benton County cemetery in Siloam Springs.
And she is an actress that everyone has seen in dozens of productions and knows, even if they don't know her name.
Alice Margaret Ghostley was born August 14, 1923 in Eve , Missouri to Harry and Margaret Ann Turner Ghostley. Harry, who was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone as part of the United State military in the 1920 census, was a telegraph operator for Kansas City Southern Railroad when he returned stateside after his service.
Tu further cement the Ghostley connection to our region, Harry married Margaret Turner in Fort Smith on January 1, 1921 and the family was listed in the Benton County census by 1930. The family unit also listed Alice, then 7 years-old, and sister Gladys, who was nine at the time.
The family moved to Henryetta sometime after 1936, and the "Ghostley Girls" both graduated from high school there. In 1938, Alice enrolled at the University of Oklahoma but later dropped out to pursue a career in acting, a quest that took her to New York City at the age of twenty.
Ghostley first came to Broadway in the New Faces of 1952 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 comedis, including Shangria Law (1956).
In 1978, she succeeded Dorthy Loudon, who had created the role of Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of the musical.
A veteran of early television , Ghostley appeared as Joy, one of the ugly stepsisters in the 1957 musical television production of Cinderella, which starred Julie Andrews in the title role.
The other stepsister was played by actress Kaye Ballard. Twelve years later, Ghostley guest-starred as a harried maternity nurse on Ballard's comedy series, The Mothers-In-Laws.
Ghostley guest starred on the NBC police comedy, Car 54, Where Are You? and then portrayed recurring characters ron several sitcoms , beginning with Bewitched in 1966 in "Maid To Order", in which Ghostley played an inept maid named Naomi, who was hired by Darrin Stephens to assist his wife Samantha during her pregnancy.
Towards the end of the 1965-66 season, actress-comedian Alice Pearce, who was featured as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched, died. The producers of the series immediately offered the role of Gladys to Ghostley, who refused it.
As a result, in the fall of 1966, character actress Sandar Gold assumed the role of Gladys.
In September 1969, after the death of actress Mario Lorne, who played Aunt Clara, Ghostley joined Bewitched as a semiregular in the role of Esmeralda, a shy witch who served as a maid and babysitter to the Stephens' household.
Ghostley's character of Esmeralda was created to replace Aunt Clara's role as a bumbler of magic. (Coincidentally, Ghostley and Lorne shared a brief scene together in the 1967 film The Graduate, a few months prior to Lorne's death and before Ghostley was cast in Bewitched.)
Ghostley went on to portray Cousin Alice (1970–71) on Mayberry R.F.D, and Bernice Clifton (1986–93) on Designing Women, for which she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1992. She was also a regular on Nichols (1971–72) and The Julie Andrews Hour 1972–73).
Among her roles in motion pictures, Ghostley appeared To Kill A Mockingbird (1962),playing Stephanie Crawford, the neighborhood gossip. She appeared in the film version of Grease as shop teacher Mrs. Murdock. In 1985, she had a supporting role in the Nancy Allen comedy Not For Publication and played Grandmama in the direct-to-video movie Addams Family Reunion.
Ghostley was married to Felice Orlandi, an Italian-American actor, from 1953 until his death in 2003.They had no children.
Ghostley died at her home in Studio City, California, on September 21, 2007 after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes.
Her parents had retired back to Benton County and were both buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery and in August, 2009, her ashes were taken to the cemetery in Siloam Springs and buried with her sister Gladys ( who died June 21, 2009).
The sisters are interred next to their parents.
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