1/11/2024 0 Comments Minnie pearlShe said in 1987: "I have no intention of retiring as long as I have my health. He said I looked like the end of a long, hard winter."įor 27 years, she toured with the biggest stars in country music, including her close friend Roy Acuff, the late "king of country music." In one routine, she quipped: "A feller told me last night I was a breath of fresh air. The key to much of her humor was self-deprecation. In 1947 she appeared in the first country music show to play New York's Carnegie Hall. At the time it was unheard of for a woman to do stand-up comedy. She made her first appearance as Minnie Pearl from Grinders Switch - a railroad switching station just outside Centerville - on the Grand Ole Opry radio show in 1940. "I never planned to be a comic, but through a series of events, I ended up as Minnie Pearl." "I soon realized that comedy is much more fulfilling and fun," she said in 1989. She studied drama at what is now Belmont College in Nashville and wanted to be a serious actress.īut while working as a drama coach with an Atlanta production company, she created the Minnie Pearl character that was to become her life's work. In contrast to her stage role, the Colleys were well off and well educated. The youngest of Fannie Tate and Thomas Colley's five girls, Sarah Ophelia Colley was born in Centerville, 50 miles southwest of Nashville. It seems that I've always been on the Opry and that I've always been Minnie Pearl." Her husband, Henry Cannon, who also served as her manager, accepted the award on her behalf.Ībout her long career, she said in 1989: "It's like wedding anniversaries - it seems forever, and it seems like no time at all. The effects of the stroke prevented her from attending a White House ceremony in July 1992 in which she was one of 13 recipients of a National Medal of Art. Then, in June 1991, she suffered a mild stroke and was hospitalized for more than three weeks. In November 1989, she fell and hit her head at her Nashville home next door to the Tennessee governor's mansion. In 1987, she received the American Cancer Society's Courage Award, which was presented to her by President Ronald Reagan. She also did volunteer work with the American Cancer Society. She was found to have cancer in 1985, and she underwent a double mastectomy. In recent years, Miss Pearl suffered a series of health problems. Miss Pearl, who also sang and played the piano, was voted Country Music Woman of the Year in 1966 by the Country Music Association and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1975. In contrast to that character, Miss Pearl was gracious, cultured and sensitive, active in charities and a senior member of Nashville society. Her stage persona was a happy, hopeless character created from a composite of several women she had known early in her life. You don't mind going through a little brush to get there." Much of her humor focused on a longstanding search for a "feller." A typical quip: "Kissing a feller with a beard is like a picnic. Her boisterous, cheerful "HowDY! I'm just so proud to be here," her wide-brimmed straw hat with its dangling $1.98 price tag, her toothy grin and her calico and gingham dresses were her trademarks for more than a half-century on the Grand Ole Opry country music show and 20 years on the syndicated television show Hee Haw. Miss Pearl, 83, was admitted to a hospital in Nashville on Feb. Minnie Pearl, whose homespun humor and shrill "HowDY!" made her the first country comedian known worldwide, died today of complications resulting from a stroke.
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