Minnie Pearl

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Minnie Pearl
Birth name Sarah Ophelia Colley
Also known as Minnie Pearl
Born October 25, 1912
Origin Centerville, Tennessee, USA
Died March 4, 1996 (aged 83)
Genre(s) Country Music
Comedian
Occupation(s) Country comedian
Years active 1939 – 1996
Members
Country Music Hall of Fame
Grand Ole Opry

Minnie Pearl was the stage name of Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon (October 25, 1912 - March 4, 1996). She was a country comedienne who, along with friend Roy Acuff, was an institution at the Grand Ole Opry, and on the television show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1991 . She was known for wearing a big hat with a price tag that read "$1.98" hanging off the side.

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[edit] Early life

Sarah Ophelia Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Nashville. She graduated from what was then Nashville, Tennessee's most prestigious school for young ladies, Ward-Belmont.

[edit] Professional career

Her family, relatively affluent by the standards of the area and the day, was scandalized by her entry into show business. Her first professional position was with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, producing and directing plays and musicals for local organizations in small towns throughout the Southeast.

While producing an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a young mountain woman on whom she based her onstage persona, "Cousin Minnie Pearl". Her first performance onstage as Minnie Pearl was in 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina.

Her catch phrase was always, "Howdeeee! I'm jest so proud to be here!" delivered at what seemed to have been the top of her lungs. Once she was an established star, her audience almost invariably shouted "Howdeeee!" back to her.

Pearl's monologues almost always involved her comical relatives, notably "Uncle Nabob" and "Brother", who was simultaneously both slow-witted and wise. Her frequent exit line to applause was "I love you so much it hurts!" She also sang comic novelty songs, some of which were released as singles, such as "How To Catch A Man."

As a performer, Pearl's comedy was always a gentle and loving satire of her hometown of Centerville, which, in her act she called Grinder's Switch, a real location just outside of Centerville that consisted of little more than the eponymous railroad switch. Those who knew her recognized that the characters were largely based on real residents of Centerville. So much traffic resulted from fans and tourists looking for the hometown she described that the Hickman County Highway Department was finally motivated to change the designation on the "Grinder's Switch" road sign to "Hickman Springs Road". Attempts over the years to develop a Grinder's Switch theme park have proven futile.

Her character was always presented as a man-hungry spinster willing to settle for almost anything in the way of male companionship. In real life, she was happily married for many years to Henry Cannon. They had no children.

In the late 1960s, Mrs. Cannon and African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson were convinced to allow their names to be associated with a chain of fried chicken restaurants in competition with Kentucky Fried Chicken by Nashville entrepreneur John Jay Hooker. At first the stock price of this venture soared; later it collapsed amid allegations of accounting irregularities and stock price manipulation. This affair was thoroughly investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Mrs. Cannon and Ms. Jackson were found to have been completely uninvolved in any alleged wrongdoing, but were considerably embarrassed by the negative publicity surrounding their names. (A small number of these restaurants actually survived into the 1980s in the Middle Tennessee area; one Mahalia Jackson outlet still exists in North Nashville where it has considerable local fame, particularly among students of Tennessee State University.)

As noted above, Mrs. Cannon portrayed the "Minnie Pearl" character for many years on the perennial Saturday night television cornfest Hee Haw, both on the original network and subsequent syndicated versions. This may have been less taxing than it would appear; the program was shot entirely in Nashville and totally out of sequence, so that each performer could record all of his or her appearances for an entire television season in a matter of a few days or parts of days. When asked why the cornball program was so popular, Cannon explained that it took viewers to a place where there was "no war, no cancer."

Her final regular national television appearances came on Ralph Emery's nightly Nashville Now country-music talk show on the former Nashville Network cable channel. She and Emery performed a weekly feature, "Let Minnie Steal Your Joke", in which viewers could send in jokes for Minnie to read on the show, with prizes for the best joke of the week.

[edit] Influence

Mrs. Cannon was fairly influential in the lives of many older country music singers taking something of a maternal interest in them, especially Hank Williams, but also many of the younger generation of female singers; she had seen many of the inequities in the treatment of women in business in general, and women in the country music industry in particular, firsthand. She was also a close friend of Paul Reubens and the legendary Dean Martin.

She was also a trailblazer for rural humorists. Among those who followed in her footsteps were Jerry Clower, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Carl Hurley, David L Cook, Chonda Pierce, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy.

In 2002, she ranked #14 on CMT's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music.

[edit] Cancer Research

In her later years, she lived in a prestigious Nashville neighborhood next to the Governor's Mansion, where she befriended several of the governors. After surviving breast cancer through aggressive treatments including a double mastectomy and radiation therapy, she became a spokeswoman for the medical center in Nashville where she had been treated and somewhat for cancer survivors in general. She took on this role as herself, Sarah Ophelia Cannon, not desiring the "Minnie Pearl" character to be associated with such misfortune, although a nonprofit group, the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation, has been founded in her memory to help fund cancer research. The center where she was treated was later named the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, and has been expanded to several other hospitals in the Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky area. Her name has also been lent to the affiliated Sarah Cannon Research Institute.

[edit] Death

Her death at the age of 83 was brought on by complications due to a stroke. During her time in the nursing home, she was visited frequently by numerous country music industry figures, notably Chely Wright, Vince Gill and Amy Grant. She is buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee.

[edit] Writings and Recordings

Title Medium Publisher/Studio Copyright[1]
Howdy! Sound Recording Sunset 1950
Minnie Pearl's Diary Book Greenberg 1953
Country Western Caravan Sound Recording RCA Vicor 1954
Minnie Pearl's Christmas at Grinder's Switch (With Tennessee Ernie Ford) Book Abingdon Press 1963
America's Beloved Minnie Pearl Sound Recording Starday c. 1965
History Repeats Itself (With Buddy Starcher) Sound Recording Starday c. 1967
I Didn't Jump the Fence (with Red Sovine) Sound recording Starday c. 1968
Hall of Fame (Vol. 9), (contributor) Sound recording Starday c. 1969
Thunder on the Road Sound Recording Starday c. 1970
Minnie Pearl Cooks Book Aurora Publishers 1970
Live at the Grand Ole Opry (With Hank Williams) Sound Recording MGM 1976
Minnie Pearl: An Autobiograph (with Joan Dew) Book Simon and Schuster 1980
Christmas At Grinder's Switch (with Roy Acuff) Book Abingdon Press 1985
Best Jokes Minnie Pearl Ever Told (Plus a Few She Overheard!) (compiled by Kevin Kenworthy) Book Rutledge Hill Press 1999

[edit] Culture References

  • Minnie Pearl had a cameo appearance in the film Coal Miner's Daughter. She appears at the Opry as herself.
  • In the film Selena while Selena (Jennifer Lopez) is shopping for a gown in one scene, she dons a garish hat while her friend looks on disapprovingly, in her defense Selena then says "It's very Minnie Pearl!".
  • Singer Pam Tillis had a tribute song in honor of Minnie Pearl called "Two Dollar Hat" with the chorus:
Year after year. Every week at the Ryman
She had 'em laughin' 'til she had 'em cryin',
Fate had a star; the world had a diamond
In a two dollar hat."
"We'll dress like Minnie Pearl
Just you and me, punk rock girl!"
  • She is mentioned in the song "Likes of You" by Flogging Molly "... met a girl named Minnie Pearl, swore she'd always be his girl ..."
  • She is mentioned in the song "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying" by The Bloodhound Gang, "It's hard to hide a hard on When you're dressed like Minnie Pearl"
  • She is mentioned in the recent song of Kenny Rogers "The Last Ten Years (Superman):"

We lost Minnie Pearl, Ron Reagan and Sam I am, We even lost Superman!

  • In the comic strip Get Fuzzy, Minnie Pearl serves as the punchline:
Satchel - You know, Buck. Without your fang, you look like a different cat! You're like Inspector Clouseau without the mustache!
Bucky - Correction: I'm like Tom Selleck without the mustache.
Rob - Correction: You're like Minnie Pearl without the tag.
  • She is referred to in the PC Game Deer Avenger 4 in one of the calls Bambo uses - "Oh Boy! A picture of Minnie Pearl, back in the days when she was hot!"
  • She is included as a lyric in the Victor Wooten song "When I want to Get Funky": "When I want to get funky / I might just date your girl / I might just rock her world / I might not comb my curls / kissin' Minnie Pearl"
  • The song "Ophelia" by The Band is named for her.
But I'm still waitin' for the second comin' Of Ophelia
Come back home

[edit] References