Beth Howland — who spent nine seasons playing timid waitress Vera Gorman on hit CBS series “Alice” — passed away in Santa Monica, Calif. at the age of 74.
But in a bizarre twist, her death on Dec. 31, 2015, had been kept secret for five months!
Her husband, actor Charles Kimbrough, explained that the long delay in announcing her death from lung cancer was at Beth’s request.
“She didn’t want to make a fuss,” he said — with the actress also requesting that she didn’t have any kind of memorial service.
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Beth (seen above, middle, with costars Polly Holliday and Linda Lavin) told The National ENQUIRER in 1979 that getting cast on “Alice” saved her career after many years of working on Broadway.
“I was terribly discouraged, almost suicidal,” said Beth.
“I thought I’d never get work…I did a few jobs, then nothing happened. I found an agent, but she dropped me — and didn’t tell me in order not to hurt my feelings.”
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But Beth’s anxiety over auditions ultimately worked in her favor when it came to landing her role in “Alice.”
“When I saw a director or producer, I was too shy to talk,” Beth recalled. “I clammed up because I’d think of those gorgeous girls sitting outside, and I felt about two inches high.”
Beth had married character actor Michael J. Pollard in 1961, but the couple divorced shortly after the elvish character actor received an Oscar nomination for “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1968.
She later married Kimbrough, best remembered today as news anchor Jim Dial from “Murphy Brown.”
