By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

Actress, author and television producer Fannie Flagg brought her personal brand of Southern wit and wisdom to Atlanta last week, when she addressed a packed house at the Airport Hilton.

Sponsored by the Women's Life Center at Southern Regional Hospital, the women only luncheon featured Flagg's original humor woven into the story of her personal successes, misfortunes and hilarious escapades.

“I started in comedy and show business the day I was born... the nurse showed me to my father and he said, `There's something funny about her,'“ Flagg said in her opening remarks.

Her professional career started in Birmingham, Ala. in the early `60s where she was a co-host on WBRC, “the poor man's Today show,” she quipped. Her stint as a weather commentator was short-lived, however, due to her practice of moving the rain, storm and sun symbols a couple inches to the east of their set location. “If I felt like it, I'd put in a few storms,” she added. To complicate things, she found out the weather commentator who broadcast before her was moving her symbols!

Later, she was hired by the late Alan Funt as a writer for “Candid Camera,” the TV feature that depicted the reactions of regular people in irregular circumstances.

Flagg said that's where she learned the greatest lesson of her life: ”Nothing is funnier than real life.”

“I learned more about the American sense of humor... we're the only country in the world that has a national sense of humor,” Flagg said.

Despite success in television, Broadway and comedic recordings, Flagg harbored a secret desire. ”I always wanted to write,” she said. But she couldn't spell. Born Patricia Neal and known in grade school as Patsy, Flagg repeatedly would spell her first name P-A-S-T-Y and would be called Pasty by her teachers, “I spent my whole life thinking I was incredibly stupid,” Flagg confessed. Finally she learned that her spelling dysfunction had a name, dyslexia.

Flagg signed up for a writer's conference in Santa Barbara, not in an effort to pursue a literary career, but to meet her idol, Eudora Welty, who was appearing at the seminar. In order to stay at the conference, Flagg had to produce a piece of short fiction.

“There's nothing funnier than the truth,” Flagg told herself, and she began to recount on paper an episode from her childhood. The story became Daisy Mae and the Miracle Man and her misspellings were passed off as the quaint mistakes of a 12-year-old girl. Welty personally presented Flagg with first prize and she was asked to develop the story into a novel.

“How long is a novel?” Flagg asked the publisher. “About 400 pages,” he responded. “I can't do this; I can't spell. Well, he looked at me like I'd lost my mind,” Flagg recalled. That's when she learned about copy editors. “I'd have the freedom to write and not have D's and F's on my paper,” she said.

Flagg eventually returned to Alabama and wrote “Fried Green Tomatoes,” which is based on the life of her Aunt Bess Fortenberry. What started as a “sweet story” became a major motion picture based on the book which remained on the New York Times best seller list for 36 weeks.

Flagg's “crusade to write about middle class people” has continued with the publication of “Welcome to the World, Baby Girl.” She divides her time between California and Alabama and is now working on her fourth novel.

Flagg's appearance at Southern Regional was part of the “Knowing You” event series sponsored by the hospital. The Women's Life Center is on the boards for completion in early 200l, and will encompass 66,907 square feet of care. The $18 million center will offer obstetrical, gynecological, diagnostic and educational services for women living in the Southern Crescent.

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Weekend Home Page