About the artist
Beth Howland was an American actress best known for her role as the scatterbrained, chain-smoking waitress Vera Louise Gorman on the long-running sitcom «Alice», which aired from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s. Before television made her a household name, she trained as a stage actress and performer, working in musical theater on Broadway, where her comic timing and vocal ability were already evident.
Her most notable stage credit came in Stephen Sondheim's «Company», in which she originated the role of Amy and delivered the rapid-fire patter song «Getting Married Today», a performance that became one of the most celebrated moments in the show and a benchmark for the demanding number. That Broadway pedigree in music and comic performance carried into her television work, where her nervous, endearing energy as Vera became a defining part of the ensemble on «Alice».
Howard largely stepped back from high-profile acting work after the show ended, and she is remembered primarily through the enduring popularity of «Alice» in syndication and through the original cast recording of «Company», which preserved her breakout Broadway performance for later generations of musical theater fans.