Minnie Pearl

BIOGRAPHY: JUST SO PROUD TO BE HERE

Minnie Pearl was born as Sarah Ophelia Colley in 1912. (1)

Born in Centerville, Tennessee as the youngest of five children, Sarah Colley enjoyed a generally supportive childhood. Her father was a successful lumber magnate and her mother was a homemaker. While the family enjoyed prosperity during Colley’s formative years, they lost their fortune during the Great Depression. (2)

Colley studied acting at Belmont University and became a community theater director for the Wayne P. Sewell Producing Company at the age of 22. (3) For her job, she often traveled to southern cities and towns to stage a variety of plays. It was during this time that Colley met the inspiration for her Minnie Pearl character. While travelling through northern Alabama, Colley met an elderly women who spoke in a country accent and used rural mannerisms. Colley delighted in the humor of the woman and used her rural tone to help develop the Minnie Pearl character that she became famous for. (2)

Colley’s first appearance as Minnie Pearl was in April of 1939 at the Highland Park Hotel in Aiken, South Carolina. A 1940 appearance at a banker’s convention in Centerville garnered the attention of a Nashville radio station called WSM. In November of 1940, WSM offered Colley a position on its famous show, The Grand Ole Opry. Colley’s Minnie Pearl character was met with a massive wave of popularity, leading Colley’s character to be listed alongside the Opry’s cast members less than a month later. (2)

Pictured: a wax figure encapsulating Minnie Pearl’s style of dress

Colley continued to develop the Minnie Pearl character while performing at the Opry, transforming herself into what the Country Music Hall of Fame called “the quintessential small town spinster.” (2) Pearl often joked about chasing after men and disparaged her own physical appearance in routines. She also frequently told stories about a fictional town called Grinder’s Switch. The backwoods country town was home to many of Pearl’s fictional relatives- such as Uncle Nabob- that were featured in her routines.

“Uncle Nabob, he’s the finest old fella you’ve ever seen. He don’t ever do much. He ain’t a failure, he really ain’t. He ain’t a failure, he just started at the bottom and he likes it there.”

Minnie Pearl’s physical appearance consisted of worn-out shoes, a ruffled dress, and a straw flowered hat with a 1.98 price tag.  When asked about the price tag, Minnie stated “The price tag on my hat seems to be symbolic of all human frailty. There’s old Minnie Pearl standing on stage in her best dress, telling everyone how proud she is to be there and she’s forgotten to take the 1.98 price tag off her hat.” (3)

Pictured: A photo of Minnie Pearl in her trademark straw hat

“I said, what’s the matter with you? Didn’t you give me a funny look? He said ‘Lady, you got a funny look but I didn’t give it to you.”

Minnie Pearl’s success at the Grand Ole Opry continued to grow during the early 1940’s. In 1942, she joined the featured cast of the Opry on the “Prince Albert Show,” a 30-minute segment that was nationally broadcast by NBC. (2) Pearl remained a featured comedian at the Opry for most of her career, performing alongside veteran comedians such as Rod Brasfield. (2)

After a 1957 television appearance on This is Your Life, Minnie started making many television appearances. She performed on The Tonight Show, The Carol Burnette Show, and The Jonathan Winters Show. She was added to the cast of Hee Haw in 1969, where she was able to reach a wider audience across the nation. By the 1980’s, she appeared weekly on TNN’s Nashville Now. During this time, she continued her career at the Opry. Throughout her career, Minnie Pearl sold six albums and nearly a dozen singles. (2) She was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1975, making her the first female comedian to do so. (3)

Pictured: The cover to Howdee!, one of Pearl’s albums

Above: Minnie Pearl performing at the Grand Ole Opry

Pearl performed her last show in 1991 and suffered a stroke shortly afterward. She passed away at the age of 83.

Minnie’s Experiences as a Woman in Comedy:

As a female comedian during the WWII and post-WWII era, Minnie Pearl faced pressure to have a certain asexual presence. She accomplished this by adopting her “spinster-like” mode of dress and disparaging her own appearance onstage.

“Clearly, the very presence of the female body on stage has produced, in the context of country discourse, a particular sexual anxiety. Although the female country artist could not obviously exist as a woman in daily lived experience without representing (or performing) a gendered body, the lasting vestiges of Victorian mores and the pronounced influence of southern Protestantism ensured that she had far fewer acceptable options on stage than men.” – Pamela Fox (4)

Among her comedic peers, she was considered to be “one of the boys.” (4)

Impacts and Influences:

Minnie Pearl had substantial influence on other rural comedians such as Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy.

Minnie Pearl and Feminism:

Minnie Pearl was not exactly a part of the Civil Rights Movement, as she supported the openly racist George Wallace during his campaign for governor of Alabama by performing shows at his rallies (5). She was also not a self-described feminist, never mentioning the movement in any interviews.

Though the combination of these two pieces of information might make one wonder why I even included a section on feminism for Minnie Pearl, I argue that her actions as a working-class, rural female comedian were absolutely feminist. By taking the stage as a woman marginalized by several of her social identities, Pearl was committing a feminist act every time she performed.

Works Cited

(1) O’connor, John J. “Review/Television; A Howdy to Minnie Pearl, Price Tags and All.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/26/news/review-television-a-howdy-to-minnie-pearl-price-tags-and-all.html.

(2) “Minnie Pearl.” Country Music Hall of Fame, countrymusichalloffame.org/Inductees/InducteeDetail/minnie-pearl.

(3) “Just So Proud to Be Here: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Minnie Pearl.” Wide Open Country, 14 Dec. 2018, http://www.wideopencountry.com/just-proud-celebrating-life-legacy-minnie-pearl/.

(4) Fox, Pamela. “Recycled ‘Trash’: Gender and Authenticity in Country Music Autobiography.” American Quarterly, 1998.

(5) Jones, Ray, director. Minnie Pearl Opening For George Wallace in Florence Alabama, 1958 During The 1958 Governor’s Race. YouTube, YouTube, 11 June 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilaAXCzKsPQ.

(Photo one credit: http://www.wideopencountry.com/just-proud-celebrating-life-legacy-minnie-pearl/)

(Photo two credit: http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/sfc/index.php/tag/minnie-pearl/)