Alice Pearce, once called "the adenoidal lass with the most beautiful, homely face on Broadway," carved a unique career playing wallflowers, nitwits, nags, and other oddball characters, all of whom contrasted sharply with their portrayer. As the shy daughter of an international banker, she experienced a privileged upbringing, attending exclusive schools in both Europe and the United States. Against her parents' wishes, she pursued acting, eventually enlivening thirteen Broadway productions and winning acclaim for her smash act at New York's chicest nightclub, the Blue Angel. Although Alice's Hollywood career was comparatively fleeting, the Emmy-winning actress was featured in fourteen films and in dozens of top television series. She achieved her greatest fame-ironically, at the very end of her brief life-for playing Gladys Kravitz, the snoopy neighbor on the TV sitcom Bewitched. Sweet Oddball, exhaustively researched and illustrated with 225 rare photos, chronicles the public and private lives of a lady much beloved by her fellow actors and fans.
Fredrick Tucker is a retired educator who enjoys studying character actors of stage and screen. Sweet Oddball, the culmination of research begun in 1975, is his second book for BearManor Media. His biography Verna Felton was published in 2010.