Edie McClurg Turns 80

I have been a fan of comedy character actress Edie McClurg (b. 1945) for just about the entirety of her half century career. Though I surely saw her very first TV performances dating to back to the mid ’70s, I first learned her name when she was a regular on David Letterman’s first TV show, the daytime show that launched in 1980. Her most frequent character on that show was Mrs. Marv Mendenhall, and she was a perfect match for this program, which was very much a parody of daytime TV. McClurg specialized in playing vacant, cheerful midwestern ladies, with a very strong accent, in a sing-song voice in a very shrill register. Her catchphrase was “uh huh!” but pronounced in a manner that was was particular to her. She’d have been a perfect Hyacinth Buckett in an American version of Keeping Up Appearances. She did get many regular roles on sit-coms, comedy variety shows, and films, but she was always a supporting player, perhaps a bit too eccentric for the lead.

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, McClurg worked in local radio there at an NPR station for nearly a decade. She got pulled into comedy by her older brother, Bob McClurg, who was a member of the Pitschel Players and The Groundlings. Edie got pulled into these companies while visiting her brother in the early ’70s. She began getting in national TV and major films almost immediately. I’ve broken them down by type:

Regular and recurring television roles: Tony Orlando and Dawn (1974-76, sketch ensemble); The Kallikaks (1977, principal on short-lived David Huddleston sit-com); The Chevy Chase Show (1977); The Richard Pryor Show (1977, sketch ensemble); WKRP in Cincinnati (1979-80, as Herb’s wife); The David Letterman Show (1980); The Big Show (1980, sketch ensemble); Harper Valley P.T.A. (1981); Madame’s Place (1982); Small Wonder (1985-88); The History of White People in America (1985-86); Valerie/The Hogan Family (1986-1991); Drexell’s Class (1991-92); Life with Louie (1995-98); and 7th Heaven (1996-2006) et al.

Movie roles:Carrie (1976); Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980); Oh God Book II (1980); Pandemonium (1982); Eating Raoul (1982); Mr. Mom (1983); Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers (1984); Back to School (1986); Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986); Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987); She’s Having a Baby (1988); Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988); Curly Sue (1991); A River Runs Through It (1992); Natural Born Killers (1994); The Master of Disguise (2002); Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003); et al

TV movies:Bill: On His Own (1983, with Mickey Rooney, a rare dramatic role); Crash Course (1988); et al

TV guest shots:Alice, Diff’rent Strokes; The Jeffersons; Moonlighting; The Golden Girls, Roseanne, Seinfeld, Picket Fences; Married…With Children; Mad About You;and a zillion others

Voice-overs:The Secret of NIMH (1982); The Little Mermaid (1989); A Bug’s Life (1998); Home on the Range (2004); Cars (2006); Cars II (2011); Zootopia (2016); and more TV work than you can name, Scooby Doo, Casper, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Snorks, Jimmy Neutron etc. One of her most recent (and last) credits was in an episode of Family Guy.

I saw Edie McClurg in a brand new show just two months ago, though it was a tease of sorts. In the recent documentary Pee-Wee as Himself they kept showing photos and film clips from Paul Reubens’ early days with the Groundlings. Edie is in many of those images, so I kept hoping I’d see her as a talking head, or would at least mention her. Sadly we learned the likely reason she was absent:

Around 2019/2020, she was diagnosed with Alzheimers and went into elder care, with her cousin actress Angelique Cabral as conservator. She made the news most recently (2022) when some guy who had been hired as her caregiver sexually abused her, and attempted to take her to a different state with the intention of marrying her. I’m sorry the story lands in this sordid place! But at least she does have people looking after her, and an order of protection was granted against the creep. Edie McClurg has afforded the public many a belly laugh, from my childhood to the present day, and relatively anonymously. In my book, she rates a statue.

For more about show business historyconsult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.