Theodore Decker: Conchata Ferrell went to Hollywood decades ago but never forgot Circleville
Most likely you knew her as Berta, the gruff housekeeper who relentlessly skewered the pair of brothers employing her on television's "Two and a Half Men."
Maybe you remember her as the owner of "Mystic Pizza," or as the churlish law firm secretary who did not mask her disdain of Julia Roberts' title character in "Erin Brockovich."
But if you lived in Circleville not too long ago, you might have recognized Conchata Ferrell not from the big or small screen but from Main Street, as a fellow customer at Lindsey's Bakery or Wittich's Candy Shop.
Ferrell died last week in Los Angeles at the age of 77, after a career in films and television that spanned 50 years. In a business that can be notoriously fickle, she found steady work as a character actress. Along the way she earned three Emmy nominations, one in 1992 for her work on "L.A. Law" and two others for "Two and a Half Men." Her Berta role was originally planned for a mere two-episode arc in the first season but ended up a mainstay of the series for its entire 12-year run.
Through much of her career, Ferrell regularly came home to Circleville, where her parents had lived since 1965.
Ferrell was born in West Virginia in 1943, and her family lived in the hills outside Charleston during her school years.
Work brought her parents, Luther and Mescal Ferrell, to Circleville, according to a brief news item in the Circleville Herald that ran in 1974.
"Luther Ferrell came with the Owens-Illinois plant here," the newspaper stated.
Circleville is a smaller place, but not so small that Luther Ferrell's new job would have made the paper. Instead, the news item was one of several to appear through the years that was related to his daughter, Conchata, who was by then making a name for herself in acting.
"Conchata Ferrell, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Luther Ferrell, 420 Cedar Heights Road, debuts Tuesday night as Rita the maid on the television series, "Maude" .. . Well known to Circleville theater fans, Conchata was a member of Roundtown Players." The Roundtown Players are a community theater company founded in 1967.
In 1994, nine years before she would join the cast of "Two and a Half Men," Ferrell spoke to Dispatch reporter Julia Keller.
In the interview, she spoke of feeling fortunate to have found a way to make a living doing what she loved.
"I'm a really good supporting player," she told Keller. "I don't trip all over my ego. I don't mind being a second banana."
Ferrell grew up watching movies and television, but said she found it hard to picture herself in a profession that demanded magazine-cover beauty of its leading ladies.
"I've been overweight since puberty, so acting was never a dream," she told Keller. "All I knew was what I saw on the screen, and there wasn't anybody who looked like me."
Ferrell left West Virginia University after two years and took a series of jobs: "I was a waitress, a hotel desk clerk, factory worker — you name it."
One of those jobs was at the old Lincoln Plastics Plant on Corwin Street in Circleville.
Boredom prompted her to give college another try. She enrolled at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. There, Ferrell said, she overcame her self-consciousness about her weight and joined student productions.
"I'm the blue-collar worker in this business," she told Keller. "I mean, there was a time when I thought I was going to be a star, back when I started in New York. But that isn't the way it worked out, and now I'm just glad to be working."
Ferrell told Keller that she visited Circleville twice a year.
"I've never missed a single Christmas with my parents," she said.
Ferrell was known to stop in at Wittich's Candy Shop and at Lindsey's Bakery, two of Circleville's storied shops, for sweets and baked goods.
At Lindsey's, Kacy Miller said Thursday that she remembered meeting Ferrell as a young girl, long before realizing she was an actress. Ferrell knew Miller's grandmother, Katie Lindsey.
"Everybody knew my grandma," Miller explained. "I vaguely remember, I was like walking on the street with her and my grandma."
In Hollywood last week, tributes to Ferrell came from the likes of Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Adam Sandler.
But beneath her online obituary, down in the list of condolences, was this:
"We will miss you here in Circleville, Ohio. It was always great to see you shopping downtown Circleville and you would always stop in to the local candy store to get some treats."
A short tribute to a blue-collar actor, from a blue-collar town.
tdecker@dispatch.com
@Theodore_Decker
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