Minnie Pearl

Minnie Pearl
Minnie Pearl performing at Knott's Berry Farm
Background information
Birth name	Sarah Ophelia Colley
Also known as	Minnie Pearl
Born	October 25, 1912(1912-10-25) Centerville, Tennessee, United States
Died	March 4, 1996(1996-03-04) (aged 83) Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Country Comedy
Occupations	Country comedian
Years active	1939–1991

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon (October 25, 1912 – March 4, 1996), known professionally as Minnie Pearl, was an American country comedienne who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (from 1940 to 1991) and on the television show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1991.^[1][2]

Biography

Early life

Sarah Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Nashville. She was the youngest of the five daughters of a prosperous lumberman in Centerville.^[3] She graduated from Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University), at the time Nashville's most prestigious school for young ladies, where her major was theater studies and dance was a particular interest. After graduation she taught dance for several years.^[4]

Professional career

Pearl in 1965.

Her first professional theatrical job was with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, a touring theater company based in Atlanta, for which she produced and directed plays and musicals for local organizations in small towns throughout the southeastern United States.^[3][4]

As part of her work with the Sewell company, she made brief appearances at civic organizations to promote the group's shows. She developed her Minnie Pearl routine during this period.^[4] While producing an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a mountain woman whose style and talk became the basis for "Cousin Minnie Pearl".^[3] Her first stage performance as Minnie Pearl was in 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina.^[3] The following year, executives from Nashville radio station WSM-AM saw her perform at a bankers' convention in Centerville and gave her an opportunity to appear on the Grand Ole Opry on November 30, 1940.^[3][4] The success of her debut on the show began an association with the Grand Ole Opry that continued for more than 50 years.^[5]

Pearl's comedy was gentle satire of rural Southern culture, often called "hillbilly" culture. Pearl always dressed in styleless "down home" dresses and wore a hat with a price tag hanging from it, displaying the price of $1.98. Her catch phrase was "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jes' so proud to be here!" delivered in a loud holler. After she became an established star, her audiences usually shouted "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E!" back. Pearl's humor was often self-deprecating, and involved her unsuccessful attempts at attracting the attention of "a feller" and, particularly in later years, her age. She also told monologues involving her comical 'ne'er-do-well' relatives, notably "Uncle Nabob" and "Brother", who was simultaneously both slow-witted and wise. She usually closed her monologues with the exit line, "I love you so much it hurts!" She also sang comic novelty songs.

Hat on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC

Pearl's comic material derived heavily from her hometown of Centerville, which in her act she called Grinder's Switch. Grinder's Switch is a community just outside of Centerville that consisted of little more than a 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 Grinder's Switch that the Hickman County Highway Department eventually changed the designation on the "Grinder's Switch" road sign to "Hickman Springs Road."

Cannon portrayed Minnie Pearl for many years on television, first on ABC's Ozark Jubilee in the late 1950s; then on the long-running television series Hee Haw, both on CBS and the subsequent syndicated version. She made several appearances on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. Her last regular performances on national television were on Ralph Emery's Nashville Now country-music talk show on the former Nashville Network cable channel. With Emery she performed in a weekly feature, "Let Minnie Steal Your Joke," in the Minnie Pearl character and read jokes submitted by viewers, with prizes for the best jokes.^[3]

Cannon made a cameo appearance in the film Coal Miner's Daughter, in which she appears at the Opry as her Minnie Pearl character.

Family life

On February 23, 1947 Sarah Colley married Henry R. Cannon, who had been an Army Air Corps fighter pilot during World War II and was then a partner in an air charter service. After the marriage, Henry Cannon set up his own air charter service for country music performers and took over management of the Minnie Pearl character.^[3][5] His clients in the charter service included Eddy Arnold, Colonel Tom Parker, Hank Williams, Carl Smith, Webb Pierce, and Elvis Presley.^[3] The couple had no children.^[5] In 1969 they purchased a large estate home in Nashville next door to the Tennessee Governor's mansion.^[6]

Chicken restaurants

In the late 1960s Nashville entrepreneur John Jay Hooker persuaded Cannon and African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson to lend their names to a chain of fried chicken restaurants established to compete with Kentucky Fried Chicken. After initially reporting good results and enjoying a public stock worth $64 million, the venture collapsed amid allegations of accounting irregularities and stock price manipulation. The ensuing investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cleared both Cannon and Jackson of involvement in financial wrongdoings, but both were embarrassed by the negative publicity.

Cancer research

After battling 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. She took on this role as herself, Sarah Ophelia Cannon, not Minnie Pearl, although a nonprofit group, the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation, was 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 Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. Her name has also been lent to the affiliated Sarah Cannon Research Institute.^{[citation needed]}

Final years

Cannon suffered a serious stroke in June 1991,^[3] bringing her performing career to an end. After the stroke she resided in a Nashville nursing home where she received frequent visits from country music industry figures, including Chely Wright, Vince Gill and Amy Grant. Her death on March 4, 1996, at the age of 83, was attributed to complications from another stroke. She is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee.

Legacy and influence

She was an important influence on younger female country music singers and rural humorists such as Jerry Clower, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Carl Hurley, David L Cook, Chonda Pierce, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy. In 1992, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 2002 she was ranked as number 14 on CMT's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music list.^{[citation needed]}

She was friends with performers outside the country genre, including Dean Martin (she appeared on an episode of The Dean Martin Show), and Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman).^[7] In 1992 Reubens made what would be his last appearance as Pee-Wee Herman for the next 15 years at a Minnie Pearl tribute show.^[8]

Bronze statues of Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff are displayed in the lobby of the Ryman Auditorium. Chely Wright and Dean Sams (of Lonestar) posed for the statues.

A museum dedicated to Minnie Pearl was situated just outside the Grand Ole Opry House at Opryland USA (next to another museum dedicated to Roy Acuff), but the museum closed along with the theme park in 1997. Many of its artifacts were moved to the adjacent Grand Ole Opry Museum, some of which may have been damaged in the 2010 Tennessee floods.

Popular culture references

There are numerous references to the Minnie Pearl character in popular culture.

• 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!"

• Pat Priest guest stars on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1977 playing Sue Ann Nivens' (Betty White) friendly, popular sister from the South. At one point when Priest calls out a greeting, Sue Ann snaps, "Look who's here, 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."

• She is mentioned in the song "Punk Rock Girl" by The Dead Milkmen

"We'll dress like Minnie Pearl

Just you and me, punk rock girl

(...)

Let's have a child

We'll name her Minnie Pearl

Just you and me"

• 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 Kenny Rogers' song, "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 served as the punch line:

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 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

• She is referred to in the song "Old Fashioned Girl" by Jaydee Bixby:

"She's an old-fashioned girl,

A little bit like Mama,

A little bit like Minnie Pearl."

• She is mentioned in the song "All American Country Girl" by Aaron Watson:

"But when it comes down to the heart of the situation,

She's a little rockin' honky tonkin' modern day Minnie Pearl,

I should know, I've been all across this great nation,

Oh there ain't no doubt, she's an All American country girl."

• Reba McEntire - Pink Guitar

"Some day she's gonna play it up there on the Opry stage

Soon you'll see it hangin' next to Minnie Pearl's hat, in the Country Music Hall of Fame"

• When Robin Williams performed at the Metropolitan Opera he opened his performance with, "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! Oops – wrong opera house!"

Books

Title	Publisher/Studio	Copyright[9]
Minnie Pearl's Diary	Greenberg	1953
Minnie Pearl's Christmas at Grinder's Switch (With Tennessee Ernie Ford)	Abingdon Press	1963
Minnie Pearl Cooks	Aurora Publishers	1970
Minnie Pearl: An Autobiography (with Joan Dew)	Simon and Schuster	1980
Christmas At Grinder's Switch (with Roy Acuff)	Abingdon Press	1985
Best Jokes Minnie Pearl Ever Told (Plus a Few She Overheard!) (compiled by Kevin Kenworthy)	Rutledge Hill Press	1999

Recordings

Selected Albums

Title	Record Label	Copyright[9]
Country Music Caravan*	RCA Victor	1954
Howdy!	Sunset	1960
America's Beloved Minnie Pearl	Starday	1965
The Country Music Story	Starday	1966
Lookin' Fer A Feller	Starday	1967
Hall of Fame (Vol. 9)*, (contributor)	Starday	c. 1969
Thunder on the Road*	Starday	c. 1970
Grandpa Jones and Minnie Pearl	RCA Camden	1973
Stars of the Grand Ole Opry*	RCA	1974
Live at the Grand Ole Opry* (With Hank Williams)	MGM	1976
New Harvest - First Gathering* (Dolly Parton album; appears on the track "Applejack")	RCA	1977
Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry*	RCA	1980

• = a guest appearance on another star's album or an appearance on a various artists album.

Singles

Minnie Pearl released a number of single records for RCA Victor during the 1950s including a few duets with Grandpa Jones. During this period she also made guest appearances on records by Chet Atkins and Ernest Tubb. In the 1960s she moved to Starday Records. At age 54 she recorded a top ten hit for Starday, "Giddyup Go - Answer," a response to Red Sovine's classic "Giddyup Go".^[10] She later recorded with Sovine and Buddy Starcher in other single releases.

Pearl was back on RCA in 1974 when she and Archie Campbell released a parody record of Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty's hit "As Soon As I Hang Up The Phone" which received airplay but did not chart. In 1977, she appeared with a number of other Opry members on Dolly Parton's New Harvest - First Gathering album, singing on the song "Applejack". In 1986 she was a featured guest vocalist, along with Jerry Clower, on the Ray Stevens comedy single entitled "Southern Air". It charted in the Top-70 of Billboard

Year	Title	US Country
1966	"Giddyup Go - Answer"	10

References

• Kingsbury, Paul (1998). "Minnie Pearl". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 409–10.
• Pearl, Minnie with Joan Dew (1980). Minnie Pearl: An Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Sarah Cannon Cancer Center
• Sarah Cannon Research Institute
• The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation
• Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts.

Notes

1. ^ New York Times
2. ^ New York Times
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Minnie Pearl Inductee Biography, Country Music Hall of Fame website. Retrieved February 14, 2009.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} James Manheim (All Music Guide), Minnie Pearl Biography, retrieved from the Country Music Television website, February 14, 2009.
5. ^ ^{a b c} Kristine McCusker (2004), in Notable American Women, Edward T. James, Barbara Sicherman, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, and Susan Ware, editors, Harvard University Press, ISBN 067401488X, ISBN 9780674014886, pp. 505-506.
6. ^ MusicCityPearl.com (archived website)
7. ^ Paul Reubens interview
8. ^ Robert Lloyd, Pee-wee’s Back in the Limelight, Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2006
9. ^ ^{a b} Library of Congress Catalog search results
10. ^ Minnie Pearl Biography, CMT.com, accessed June 2, 2011

External links

• Minnie Pearl at the Country Music Hall of Fame
• Minnie Pearl at the Internet Movie Database
• Minnie Pearl At Find A Grave

Persondata
Name	Pearl, Minnie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 25, 1912
Place of birth
Date of death	March 4, 1996
Place of death