Beth Howland: Bio, Career, Cause of Death

Beth Howland the actress who portrayed the character of Vera on the sitcom “Alice” is now living on search engine result pages and in the hearts of her fans. During her lifetime, she starred in many acting credits and rocked Hollywood.

Here are details about her career including the cause of her death.

Beth Howland: Bio

Beth Howland was born on May 28, 1941, in Boston, Massachusetts. There are no details about her parents or siblings, Beth attended a small, Catholic girls’ school, Mount St. Joseph Academy, where two nuns helped nurture the aspiring actress’ career.

At the age of 16, Beth Howland relocated to New York City with a friend, who was a dancer to pursue a career in acting. Her move to New York almost ended in regrets following her inability to have her breakthrough as she was hit with many setbacks. Beth, however, managed to pull through and a broadway debut followed.

Beth Howland: Career and movies

Beth Howland is best known to television viewers as Vera, the waitress at Mel’s Diner she played for nine years on “Alice.” She also showed up in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Love Boat,” “Eight Is Enough,” a number of celebrity shows including “Night of 100 Stars,” the 1981 and 1983 Tony Awards, the 1985 Emmy Awards, and PBS’ “You Can’t Take It With You,” “Working,” and “Sylvia Fine Kaye’s Musical Comedy Tonight.”

Matt Frewer

Beth Howland made her Broadway debut in the year 1959 when she played the role of Lady Beth Carol Burnett’s musical “Once Upon a Mattress”. The play recorded high commercial success with little negative reviews. Years later, she featured in musicals like Michael Stewart’s “Bye Bye Birdie”, Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray’s “High Spirits”, Ira Levin’s “Drat! The Cat!”, and Nunnally Johnson’s “Darling of the Day”

Beth Howland also appeared in an episode of ABC’s comedy anthology series “Love, American Style”. She also featured in the season 5 premiere of CBS’ detective television series “Canon”, where she played the role of a secretary. The same year, she appeared as a guest in other shows like the ABC’s police procedural drama “The Rookies” and CBS’ drama series “Bronk”. In 1980, she played a stripper in the HBO film ‘The Wild Wacky Wonderful World of Winter’.

Following the role she played in the ABC sitcom “Alice” for nine solid years, Beth Howland was nominated for four Golden Globes but never won one. During a career that lasted more than four decades, Beth only made two film appearances. “Lil Abner” and “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” where she had uncredited roles.

Her last television contribution was in 2002 when she appeared in an episode of Fox’s short-lived show “The Tick” and “As Told by Ginger”.

Marriage

Beth was a beautiful actress but she was not indecisive when it came to choosing a life partner. On November 6, 1961, Beth married actor Michael J. Pollard. Michael Pollard played C.W Moss in the film Bonnie and Clyde which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nomination. He has a daughter with Beth, named Holly Pollack. They were a loving couple and everyone expected the marriage to last but the couple divorced in 1969.

Beth soon found love again, this time another actor named Charles Kimbrough (seems she had a thing for actors). They married in 2002 until death separated her from Charles. Charles is famously known for playing Jim Dial on “Murphy Brown”. During the early ‘90s, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series”.

Beth Howland: Cause of Death

Humans are mere mortals and the heart can stop beating at any moment but when we take a closer look, we discover that their death does not just occur like that without something being the cause. For Beth, her own case was not different.

Ally Maki

As a teenager, Beth had always been a lover of tobacco. She so much addicted to cigarettes but somehow managed to quit in the 2000s. But we all know about withdrawal syndromes and how hard it hits. After being diagnosed with lung cancer, she passed away on December 31, 2015. She made a wish on her sickbed asking her husband, Charles Kimbrough, not to inform the media of her death immediately. Charles respected her wish and on May 24, 2016, four days after she passed on, he informed Associated Press AP about his wife’s demise.

Image Source: Entertainment Tonight