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SPEAKER_02: From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. This month we're talking about comediennees, women throughout history who've made us laugh.
They transgressed societal norms through comedy and often spoke out against injustice using their sharp wit.
A woman walks onto the stage in front of you. She's wearing a knee-length gingham dress trimmed with ruffles. A straw hat sits atop her head, decked out in a spray of vibrant plastic flowers. A price tag still hangs off the brim, as if she tried it on then walked out of the store without paying.
She opens her mouth and exclaims, Howdy!
Please welcome Minnie Pearl.
Sarah Ophelia Colley was born in October of 1912. Her upbringing in Centerville, Tennessee, was the polar opposite of the character she would come to be known for.
Her father was a well-off businessman in the lumber industry. Her mother stayed home and raised Sarah and her four siblings.
They didn't even listen to country music.
Sarah wanted to be an actress and dancer. After graduating from a posh finishing school in Nashville, she taught classes for the Wayne P. Sewell Producing Company. The organization sent directors to small towns throughout the South to stage amateur productions.
While touring with the company in Alabama, Sarah found the inspiration for what would become her life's work.
She stayed with the family in the small town of Baileyton.
The matriarch of the house captivated Sarah with her gregarious personality and country mannerisms.
To help publicize the show, Sarah would go to local club meetings.
She denounced the production then do a couple minutes of entertainment.
This is when she debuted a new comedic character based on the country woman in Alabama.
Her name was Minnie Pearl. Well, sir, I'll tell you fella paid me a compliment just now.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, he said I looked like the breath of spring.
Well, he didn't use them words. He said I look like the end of a hard winter.
SPEAKER_02: Minnie made her debut appearance in April 1939. By the fall of 1940, she'd gotten the attention of radio executives in Nashville, leading her to perform on the local station's Grand Ole Opry.
Producers worried some listeners might find her country persona offensive, so they placed her in the 11 p.m. time slot. She was paid $10 for her appearance.
The late hour didn't deter Minnie's popularity.
Within a week, listeners were obsessed with Minnie. More than 300 cards, telegrams, and letters addressed to Minnie poured into the radio station's offices. On December 7, 1940, Minnie Pearl officially became a permanent part of the Opry's cast.
Minnie Pearl was a spinster from the fictional town of Grinder's Switch. Sarah named it after a railroad crossing near her hometown.
Each performance, she'd tell a supposedly true story about the goings-on of the small country town. She gossiped about her friends and family, like brother or uncle Nabob. Often, she was preoccupied with catching a feller. A young feller come up to me without me even asking him, and he carried my purse for me.
SPEAKER_06: But he got lost in the crowd before he could give it back. It's got my phone number in it, and I know he calls.
SPEAKER_02: These stories were interspersed with jokes so hokey they'd make you groan if they didn't make you laugh.
Minnie always took to the stage in her signature thrift shop dresses, $1.98 straw hat, and beat up Mary Janes.
Her signature greeting was, Howdy! I'm just proud to be here.
SPEAKER_06: Howdy! Howdy! I'm just so proud to be here.
SPEAKER_02: Using her character, Sarah once said, Minnie Pearl is uncomplicated. She's apple pie and clothes dried in the sun and the smell of fresh bread baking. I don't think people think of her so much as a show business act, as a friend.
In 1947, Sarah married a former Army Air Corps pilot named Henry Cannon.
He set up a charter service, flying Sarah and her co-workers around the country to put on their acts.
He also worked as Sarah's manager.
Sarah continued to do her show for the Grand Ole Opry while also branching out to other ventures. She toured with many of the top country music stars of the era. She even performed at Carnegie Hall in 1947. She also made television appearances performing on This Is Your Life and The Tonight Show.
For ten years, Sarah often performed alongside veteran comedian Rod Brasfield.
SPEAKER_06: Rodney, would you be so kind as to tell me what you're doing? I'm taking singing lessons, Minnie. Oh. Well, you took a few there, you oughta left. I know, but...
SPEAKER_02:
They were true partners, swapping who would say the punchline depending on their mood that night.
Their partnership ended when Rod passed away in 1958.
In the 1960s, Sarah appeared on The Carol Burnett Show and The Jonathan Winters Show.
A producer saw her act and invited her to be a cast member on the show Hee Haw, a comedy sketch show. Sarah took on different characters, like the teacher of a one-room schoolhouse, a house mother in a girls' dormitory, or the editor of the Grinder's Switch Gazette.
Throughout her career, Sarah released a half-dozen albums and nearly a dozen singles.
Most records were monologues. But sometimes Sarah would break out her exaggeratedly rusty singing voice for a tune or two. Her song, Giddy Up, Go Answer, was a number ten hit in 1966.
Sarah was reaching a bigger audience than ever before, and the audience loved Minnie. In 1965, she was named Nashville's Woman of the Year. In 1975, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
On June 15, 1991, Minnie gave up performance in Joliet, Illinois. It would turn out to be her last public show.
Two days later, she suffered from a stroke that left her partially paralyzed.
She spent the next five years in a nursing home in Nashville.
Sarah passed away in March of 1996.
All month, we're talking about comediennees.
For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram, at Wamanica Podcast.
Special thanks to Luz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!
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