Biography

Beth Howland is still best remembered by the public for her comical character role, of Vera Louise Gorman, on CBS' weekly comedy series, Alice (1976).

In the mid to late 60s, she was the Salem Cigarette girl on television ("You can take Salem out of the country, but...")

Beth Howland's husband, Broadway and film actor Charles Kimbrough, of the television series Murphy Brown (1988) fame, told the Associated Press that his wife, Beth Holland died December 31, 2015, of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California. Per her request, her death was not reported to the media and was not made public until May 24, 2016, four days before what would have been her 75th birthday. Beth Howland was best known for her role as a ditzy waitress on the 1970's and '80's CBS popular hit series-sitcom Alice (1976). Howland was born May 28, 1941, in Boston. At 16, she landed a dancing role on Broadway, alongside Dick Van Dyke, in the musical play, "Bye Bye Birdie" (1960-1961). Howland landed a principal role in the 1970 revolutionary stage musical production of Stephen Sondheim's "Company," where she met her husband Charles Kimbrough. Beth's role and performance as manic Amy literally stopped the show when Beth Howland performed the list of reasons she is "Not Getting Married Today." CBS television talent noticed her, brought Howland to Hollywood after the show's Broadway closing, for a bit part on "The Mary Tyler More Show," filmed at the CBS' Studio Center lot. Small roles on "The Love Boat" and "Little House on the Prairie" followed and a major break came when she was cast as Vera Louise Gorman on "Alice," a comedy set in an Arizona greasy spoon diner based on the 1974 Martin Scorsese film, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Overnight, her life changed, Howland told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "I would walk into a restaurant and people would stare," she said. She hung on to her television role in "Alice," telling The Los Angeles Times that "it's crazy to leave a popular rated television series." Burnout was a hazard of playing the same role year after year, she said, and she would later struggle with being typecast. But there were "other considerations." she told The Los Angeles Times. "Like the dentist, Like not wanting to have tuna noodle casserole every night." Beth Howland earned four Golden Globe nominations during the comedy series' 1976-1985 run for her performance as the naive Vera. Howland described herself in a 1979 Associated Press profile as "very shy" and said she saw something of herself in the character. "I'm a little naive sometimes but not as much as Vera. I guess I'm really a cynic," she said. After CBS' sitcom comedy "Alice" series ended, Howland slowly disappeared from television acting, aside from bit parts on television series including CBS' "Murder, She Wrote".

Frequently appeared on the Broadway stage in the 1960s, into the early 1970s, most notably as Amy in Stephen Sondheim's "Company".

Mother, with ex-husband Michael J. Pollard, of daughter Holly Pollard.