Heard on the radio over the weekend that Vera
( Beth Howland ) is in very bad health nowadays. They said she has MS and is confined to a wheelchair. Anybody else heard this?

The dj went on to talk about whatever became of the other members of Alice. I know that Vic Tayback died of a heart attack back in 1990 but did he really balooned up to 375 pounds just before he died, in other words ate himself to death?

Originally posted by bb:
Heard on the radio over the weekend that Vera
( Beth Howland ) is in very bad health nowadays. They said she has MS and is confined to a wheelchair. Anybody else heard this?

The dj went on to talk about whatever became of the other members of Alice. I know that Vic Tayback died of a heart attack back in 1990 but did he really balooned up to 375 pounds just before he died, in other words ate himself to death?

Wow...didn't hear that. That's really sad. I always liked Vera.

Vic definitely did gain a lot of weight in the last few years of his life. I don't know what his weight was in the last few years of his life, but it was too high considering he smoked heavily, had a history of heart trouble and three heart bypasses during the Alice run.

Too bad about Beth, if it's true.

BB, maybe you can contact the radio station you heard this from and ask more details, where they got that info from, etc. I haven't heard this news about Beth but I'm very curious to know if it's true.

I myself work at a radio station ( I was checking out our competition when I heard this ). I would call them myself and ask but there is
a slight problem with it, they were airing a satellite feed out of Dallas.

They were playing the oldie tune "Tall Paul" by Annette and brought up the fact that she has MS and then went on to talk about other stars with MS. They brought up Richard Pryor
and Beth Howland from Alice. The dj said all three were confined to a wheelchair and he wishes them well.

I was both shocked and saddened to hear about this. I did check our wire machine and went through a lot of the entertainment stories from the past 2 years and I couldnt find anything about Beth ( or Alice for that matter ). However the satellite feed came from ABC which has uses their own wire serivces ( we dont use ABC ) so its very possible this appeared only on ABC and not AP
and CBS.

My guess ( hate to say it ) is that the others ( wire services ) dont think Beth Howland is all that famous anymore, unlike Richard Pryor. Of course once Howland dies it will appear on ALL the wire services.
I know this sounds mean but its the truth.

Thanks for that information.

Hopefully it can be resolved for sure soon!

bb: Thank you for the update, although I wish you had happier news to share. I knew that Vic Tayback had passed away a number of years ago, but did not know the details surrounding his death. As for Beth Howland, my prayers are with her. We sometimes lose sight of the fact that these are real people behind these sitcom characters, with real problems just like the rest of us. We'd like to think that someone like "Vera" would just go on forever the way we remember her from the show. Unfortunately, that is not the case. May God bless Beth Howland.