Alice Ghostley
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(→Early Career) |
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<td>One source states that it was Imogene who told Leonard Sillman about Ghostley, while another credits Murray Grand. Whoever did it, Leonard put Ghostley in his annual revue ''New Faces'' of 1952 where she had a hit with her rendition of the song "The Boston Beguine". ''New Faces'' played Broadway for a year, and then toured to a 28-week engagement in Chicago, followed up by stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Four of the other aspiring members of the revue that year were [[Paul Lynde]], [[Ronny Graham]], [[Robert Clary]] and [[Eartha Kitt]], and one of the writers, in his first work for the Broadway theater, [[Mel Brooks]]. The tour was so successful, that "New Faces" was made into a Cinemascope production released in 1954, and Alice again was a co-star as was Eartha Kitt, but Paul Lynde's name does not appear in the advertisement. As amateurs, she and her sister Gladys once did an act together and were given the eerie-sounding billing of "The Ghostley Sisters."</td></tr></table> | <td>One source states that it was Imogene who told Leonard Sillman about Ghostley, while another credits Murray Grand. Whoever did it, Leonard put Ghostley in his annual revue ''New Faces'' of 1952 where she had a hit with her rendition of the song "The Boston Beguine". ''New Faces'' played Broadway for a year, and then toured to a 28-week engagement in Chicago, followed up by stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Four of the other aspiring members of the revue that year were [[Paul Lynde]], [[Ronny Graham]], [[Robert Clary]] and [[Eartha Kitt]], and one of the writers, in his first work for the Broadway theater, [[Mel Brooks]]. The tour was so successful, that "New Faces" was made into a Cinemascope production released in 1954, and Alice again was a co-star as was Eartha Kitt, but Paul Lynde's name does not appear in the advertisement. As amateurs, she and her sister Gladys once did an act together and were given the eerie-sounding billing of "The Ghostley Sisters."</td></tr></table> | ||
− | + | Her act, as reported many years later consisted of : "Appearing in horn-rimmed glasses and dressed in a frumpy black sweater, she stumbled across the stage as a bewildered, sexually repressed young woman, crooning to a beguine beat about her ill-fated romance with a Harvard man, underneath a 'Voodoo moon' in Boston." | |
− | At the Fireside Inn in New York City, where she was singing, Alice met Italian-born actor Felice Antonio Orlandi in 1951. He had been born in 1924 in Avezzano, Italy. She stated in one interview that she proposed to him and he accepted after several months. They married in the Autumn of 1951. In their first few years of marriage, Alice went on-the-road in ''New Faces'' and was gone for six months. (Note: Sources do not agree exactly on how many months she was gone, six to nine certainly.) | + | <table><tr><td>At the Fireside Inn in New York City, where she was singing, Alice met Italian-born actor Felice Antonio Orlandi in 1951. He had been born in 1924 in Avezzano, Italy. She stated in one interview that she proposed to him and he accepted after several months. They married in the Autumn of 1951. In their first few years of marriage, Alice went on-the-road in ''New Faces'' and was gone for six months. (Note: Sources do not agree exactly on how many months she was gone, six to nine certainly.) |
Some sources in error will state that they married in 1953. This is probably based on a bad reading on one of several early interviews which Alice gave. However, the clear indication of their marriage year, is the interview in 1988 stating "the couple will this Autumn celebrate their thirty-seventh anniversary". | Some sources in error will state that they married in 1953. This is probably based on a bad reading on one of several early interviews which Alice gave. However, the clear indication of their marriage year, is the interview in 1988 stating "the couple will this Autumn celebrate their thirty-seventh anniversary". |