Alice 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. She was 81.
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.
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.
"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."
"There was nothing glamorous about her," he said. "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."
Ghostley won the Tony Award for best featured actress in a play in 1965 for "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window."
She also received a Tony nomination two years earlier for various characterizations in the 1962-63 Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part" with Bert Lahr.
"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.
Although Ghostley was often compared to Paul Lynde, one of her "New Faces" co-stars, Ballard said Ghostley "was completely original. If anyone was influenced, it was Paul who was influenced by Alice."
Ghostley, she said, "was gentle and she was sincere and she was kind and she never said a cruel thing about anyone -- ever. I feel humor has changed today; everyone has mean humor. Alice was the epitome of class when it came to comedy.
"But Alice was superior in everything she did. She was a very special, special person."
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.
During her show business career, she regularly moved between the stage, cabaret, movies and television.
On "Bewitched," she played the timid good witch Esmeralda, the housekeeper, from 1969 to 1972.
