Who Was Alice Star Beth Howland? Everything You Need To Know!

Publish date: 2024-06-21

Elizabeth Howland was an American actress. She worked on stage and TV, but the role of waitress Vera Gorman in the sitcom Alice brought her the most fame.

Howland played Amy in the original Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. In that role, she was the first to sing the pattern song “Getting Married Today.”

Beth Howland Early Life

Howland was born in Brighton, Mass., on May 28, 1939. At 16, she left home and went to New York City with a dancer friend. After struggling, Howland made her Broadway debut as Lady Beth in the 1959 musical Once Upon a Mattress, which moved from off-Broadway to Broadway in 1959. She went on to play parts in the musicals Bye Bye Birdie, High Spirits, Drat! the Cat!, and Darling of the Day.

Beth Howland

Beth Howland Career

As Clem’s wife, Howland can be seen dancing and singing in the chorus of the 1959 movie Li’l Abner. Valerie Harper, who became a TV star, is also in the choir. After leaving the company, she relocated from New York to California.

There, she had guest roles on TV shows like Love, American Style, Cannon, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Little House on the Prairie, Eight Is Enough, and The Love Boat. Four Golden Globe Award nominations were given to Howland for her work on the movie Alice. She later played many roles in TV movies, such as Essie in “You Can’t Take It With You” and “A Caribbean Mystery.”

She stayed with Alice for all nine seasons. Howland went into a semi-retirement after the sitcom ended in 1985. She was a guest star on shows like “Murder, She Wrote,” “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” “Sabrina, Teenage Witch,” and “The Tick.” She also starred in the “Terrible Things My Mother Told Me” ABC Afterschool Special.

Beth Howland Married

Howland married actor Michael J. Pollard from 1961 to 1969, and they had a daughter.

She married actor Charles Kimbrough in 2002 and stayed together until she died in 2015. Kimbrough and Howland had shown up in the company together.

Beth Howland Die

Beth Howland, who made high anxiety into an art form as the clumsy waitress who was always getting into trouble, and Vera Louise Gorman, who played Alice in the 1970s and 1980s, died on December 31, 2015, in Santa Monica, California. He hadn’t told anyone about her death earlier because that’s what she wanted. She turned 74.

Her husband, the actor Charles Kimbrough, said that she died of lung cancer. He also said she did not want a funeral or a memorial service.

Mr. Kimbrough said, “It was the Boston side of her personality coming out.” “She Didn’t Want To Stir Things Up.”

Ms. Howland got the part, and for nine seasons, from 1976 to 1985, her wide-eyed, jumpy performances on TV kept people laughing. When asked to describe herself, she told Knight Newspapers in 1979 that she was “uncertain and vulnerable.” Most likely, she works harder than anyone else in the diner. “Very trusting and very pure.”Howland married actor Michael J. Pollard from 1961 to 1969, and they had a daughter.

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