And from 1987 to 1993, she played Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women," a role that earned her an Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a comedy in 1992.
Among Ghostley's film credits are "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Graduate," "Gator" and "Grease."
She was born Aug. 14, 1926, in the train station in Eve, Mo., where her father worked as a telegraph operator, and she grew up in Henryetta, Okla.
"When I was 5 years old, my mother took me to the Legion Hut and stood me on a table," she told the Boston Globe in 1990. "I recited poetry! I sang songs! I tap-danced! I didn't know it then, but that table was my first stage. There was applause.
"The second time my mother took me to the Hut, I made her give me a nickel before I stood on that table. I wanted the applause but, even at 5, I knew I had earned the applause."
After graduating from high school, Ghostley attended the University of Oklahoma but quit to move to New York with her sister Gladys.
Ghostley was known for her cabaret appearances as a singer and comedian before she was cast in "New Faces of 1952."
When she first arrived in New York, she recalled in the Boston Globe interview, she couldn't afford to take singing lessons, so she worked as a secretary to a music teacher in exchange for lessons.
"The best job I had then was as a theater usher," she said. "I saw all the plays for free. What I saw before me was a visualization of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be. I saw all the first jobs I did, from waitressing to patch testing for a detergent company, as a bridge to the stage."
But she was a realist, she said.
"I knew I didn't look like an ingenue. My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn't blond. I knew I looked like a character actress.
"But I also knew I'd find a way."
Ghostley, whose actor husband, Felice Orlandi, died in 2003, is survived by her sister Gladys.
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dennis.mclellan@latimes.com
