July 23 - Edie McClurg

Image courtesy carriemovies.fandom.com

On this day, in 1945, Edie McClurg was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Edie and her older brother, Bob (who also spent most of the Eighties doing improve and appearing in movies), spent all of their formative years in KC, the children of a mailman and a government secretary (and yet they still both acquired a healthy funny bone). In the mid Sixties, Edie attended classes at the University of Missouri (the Kansas City branch, naturally) while simultaneously becoming a newswoman and producer at the local National Public Radio affiliate, KCUR-FM. After graduating, she stayed on at UM for eight more years teaching courses in radio. One of the highlights of her career with NPR was getting to play John Ehrlichman during a national broadcast of a reading of the transcripts of the Nixon Tapes. Ironically, that performance was the beginning of the end for her teaching and news careers.

In 1976, Edie made her first appearance on the silver screen when she was cast as Helen Shyres in the classic horror film Carrie. She also joined a San Francisco based improv group, the Pitcshel Players, and began performing regularly on the Tony Orlando and Dawn variety show and The Richard Pryor Show. By the end of the decade, she had begun appearing on David Letterman’s short lived morning show and had moved south to become a member of the Los Angeles improve troupe The Groundlings. While there, she helped fellow Groundling Paul Reubens develop his first play, The Pee-Wee Herman Show, and appeared in it as Hermit Hattie.

Image courtesy wired.com

Throughout the Eighties, Edie had several small but memorable roles on television and in films. She played Herb Tarlek’s wife Lucille on WKRP in Cincinnati, Bonnie Brindle in the sitcom Small Wonder and Mrs. Patty Poole on Valerie. You might remember her as the checkout lady in Mr. Mom or Marge Sweetwater in Back to School or the car rental agent in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If none of those roles ring a bell (then what have you been watching all your life?), there is one character that I’m pretty sure just about everyone has seen and at least secretly been in awe of: the pencil pulling school secretary, Grace, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That whole pencil thing began as way for Edie to keep from getting bored on the set one day, seeing how many pencils she could get into her teased up hairdo at one time. It evolved into a sort of game between her and the director, John Hughes, who kept egging her on to break her record. Eventually John decided it would be fun to actually depict it in the film and, voila, one of the great film gags was born. For those of you who were wondering, the most pencils she every got to stay in her hair at once was fifteen.

Image copyright Pixar

Edie first joined the Disney family in two ways in 1989. She was the voice of Bertha in the English dubbed version of Hayao Miyazaki’s Japanese anime film Kiki’s Delivery Service, which was produced and distributed in the US by Disney. Then she played Carlotta, the house servant who becomes exasperated with Chef Louie’s lateness in providing dinner and catches him destroying the kitchen, in The Little Mermaid. Edie would reprise the role of Carlotta for the direct-to-video sequel, The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. In 1998, she popped up in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life as Dr. Flora and appeared in My Neighbors the Yamadas, another Disney dubbed and distributed Japanese film, the next year. She followed those up with roles as Gram Gram in Air Bud: Spikes Back, Mollie the Pig in Home on the Range, Minny in the first two films of the Cars franchise, Mary in Wreck-It Ralph, Gerda in Frozen and several additional voices in Zootopia. And sharp eared viewers will recognize her as the voice making the announcements in Santa’s Workshop during the direct-to-video holiday extravaganza, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas.

Image copyright Disney

All that is just the film work Edie's done for Disney. Where have we might have seen or heard her in a Disney television show, you might ask. She's been in episodes of The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, Dinosaurs, The Kids from Room 402, Higglytown Heroes, Hannah Montana, Desperate Housewives, Doc McStuffins and Fish Hooks. Whew.

Image courtesy doyouremember.com

In the course of her 40+ year career, Edie has been in over 60 films and over 370 episodes of over 110 television shows. Her last appearances on both the big and small screens happened in 2016. Why did our favorite cheerful Midwesterner seem to suddenly disappear? Unfortunately, earlier this year we found out why. Edie is apparently in a battle with dementia, a battle that anyone who has watched a love one go through it knows is heart breaking and often times brutal. Our hearts go out to Edie's friends and family and we hope that they can find peace in the fact that Edie's legacy will be one of fun and laughter. She might have tarnished the reputation of pencils a bit, but I don't think even the pencils really mind. Happy 74th Edie. Thanks for all the giggles.