Alice Pearce 1964, Pearce was originally approached to play the part of Grandmama in the ABC television comedy series "The Addams Family". She turned down the part, which went to veteran actress Blossom Rock. In 1964, Pearce joined the cast of "Bewitched" as the nagging and nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz. Pearce's scenes were almost entirely reactions to the witchcraft she had witnessed at the house across the street. Her hysterical accusations against Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, and the disbelief of her husband Abner (George Tobias), provided a common thread through many of the series' early episodes. She played the role until
The Bewitched Inn With a Ghost". The hotel guest theme reappeared again with further sophistication in Méliès's 1906 film "A Roadside Inn". "The Bewitched Inn" was likely inspired by the Hanlon-Lees, a British troupe of acrobats popular in Europe in the 1880s. The Hanlon-Lees, describing themselves as "Entortilationists", specialized in spectacular high-energy comedy acts in which they cavorted and bounced manically across the stage, often leaping through hidden trapdoors in the set. In one routine, a guest in a candlelit inn was first tormented by his shoes coming to life, and then chased around the stage by demons. Other Méliès films bearing the