A brief look at the life of a much beloved “hillbilly” comedienne.
http://www.flickr/com/photos/kevinborland/22827009511…
She was born Sarah Ophelia Colley in Centerville, Tennessee on October 25, 1912, and would become a legend among country music fans around the world as Cousin Minnie Pearl.
image via wikipedia
Despite the down home personna on stage, Sarah was a learned woman having graduated from the prestigious Ward-Belmont College in Nashville, a school for young ladies, where she majored in theater and dance. Her first job following graduation was that of a dance instructor. In 1947 she married a WWII fighter pilot named Henry Cannon. He began an air charter service and flew Minnie and several other country music stars to their state fair gigs (which amounted to concerts in those days). Henry and Minnie bought the estate next door to the governor’s mansion and she lived out her life there.
She did not take on the personna of Minnie Pearl until 1939 when, during the production of an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a backwoods woman that gave her the idea for the character. While performing as Minnie at a convention executives of radio station WSM, the producer of the Grand Ole Opry, were in the audience. They invited her to be a guest on the Opry in late 1940 and she became a regular on that program for nearly 51 years. She was also a regular on the Hee Haw tv show for more than 21 years. Her home town of Centerville erected a statue of her in the town square.
image via wikipedia
Minnie Pearl’s audience was live at the Grand Ole Opry and was different every Saturday night so her stories were often repeated week after week. Her vast radio audience, however, remained the same but it laughed anyway even though everyone could recite the story almost verbatim. They could just about see her in that gingham dress and high shoes and the hat with the $1.95 price tag still dangling from the brim so “…folks’ll know I kin afford a new hat.”
Wow ken great artical, I am a minni pearl fan since i was old enougt to watch her on the grand ole opry an hee haw, what great childhood memories you have given me on this one and I to loved is story. it was just one of her greatest and thanks for sharing the histry so people have an idea who she was, seems funny to hear people say they never heard of her 
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