Born in August in Eve, Missouri, Alice Ghostley spent most of her childhood in Arkansas and Oklahoma. It was in a small Oklahoma town that her high school speech teacher inspired her to pursue her dream of an acting career. Following graduation from the University of Oklahoma, where she minored in drama, she headed for New Jersey and eventually New York to pursue a career on stage.

To pay for drama and singing lessons, Miss Ghostley worked in a restaurant, cosmetic factory, detective agency and motion picture theater. Her big break came singing The Boston Beguine in the now legendary Broadway production of Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952-- which made her an overnight sensation along with Eartha Kitt and Paul Lynde. Alice's natural comic talents and fine singing voice subsequently led her to starring roles in numerous Broadway musicals including The Beauty Part opposite Bert Lahr (which earned her a Tony nomination), Shangri-La, Living the Life, Sandhog, Trouble in Tahiti, Annie (in the venerable role of Miss Hannigan), and the musical spoof Nunsense, which she has performed in theaters all over the United States. Non-musical credits include roles in Maybe Tuesday, Thurber Carnival, The House of Blue Leaves, and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, for which she won the Tony Award in 1965, as well as the Saturday Review Award and the New York Critics Circle Award for best actress.

On the big screen, Miss Ghostley has been featured in such films as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Flim-Flam Man, The Graduate, Gator, Rabbit Test, Grease, Deathtrap, and B.L. Stryker. Her television credits include Maude, What's Happening!!, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, The Jackie Gleason Show, Good Times, and the nervous, shy witch Esmerelda on Bewitched. For her work as Bernice on Designing Women she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Miss Ghostley died on September 21, 2007 at her home in Studio City, California, after a long battle with colon cancer.