Alice Pearce Biography

Short, acid-tongued character comedienne Alice Pearce built her reputation in Broadway musicals. Her first screen appearance was as Lucy Schmeeler, the girl with a really bad sneeze, in the Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra musical On the Town (1949). Preferring stage to screen work, she didn't settle down in Hollywood on a permanent basis until the early '60s. On television, Pearce starred in her own weekly, 15-minute musical program in 1949, singing such novelty tunes as "I'm in Love With a Coaxial Cable." At the time of her death from cancer, Alice Pearce was appearing as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched, a role which won her a posthumous Emmy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi