Sandra Gould

Sandra Gould (July 23, 1916 – July 20, 1999) was an American actress born in Brooklyn, New York. She worked across Broadway, film, radio, and television over the course of a career spanning several decades, and is best remembered for her portrayal of the nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on the ABC sitcom Bewitched.

Gould's earliest professional work was on the stage. Between 1934 and 1937 she appeared on Broadway in two productions: the revue Thumbs Up! and Having Wonderful Time. During the same period and into the following decade, she built a substantial radio presence, spending four years playing Miss Duffy — the man-hungry daughter of the perpetually unheard owner of the establishment — on the long-running program Duffy's Tavern.

Her screen career began with an uncredited appearance in the 1947 film T-Men. The following year she played the Phone Operator in Romance on the High Seas, which marked the film debut of Doris Day. After a series of uncredited roles through the late 1940s, Gould received her first screen credit in The Story of Molly X in 1949. In 1959 she appeared as a secretary in Imitation of Life, the Academy Award-nominated film starring Lana Turner and Juanita Moore. She played a prominent supporting role in the 1966 comedy film The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Gould was a frequent guest performer on television, appearing in episodes of I Love Lucy, I Married Joan, December Bride, Maverick, The Flintstones, The Twilight Zone, The Lucy Show, Burke's Law, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, and Mister Ed, among others. In 1953 she guest starred in an episode of Letter to Loretta with Loretta Young. In 1963 she released a comedy single, "Hello Melvin (This Is Mama)," recorded as an answer record to Allan Sherman's hit "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh."

In September 1966, Gould joined the cast of Bewitched as Gladys Kravitz, the second actress to play the role following the death of Alice Pearce, who had been battling ovarian cancer during the second season and died in March of that year. Before Gould was cast, actress Mary Grace Canfield had been brought in to play a different character, Harriet Kravitz, and actress-comedian Alice Ghostley had turned down the role of Gladys before it was offered to Gould. She remained with the series through its seventh season, and in 1977 reprised the character in Tabitha, a spin-off produced five years after Bewitched was cancelled. Additional television credits include appearances on Columbo, Adam-12, Punky Brewster, Friends, and Veronica's Closet.

In 1960 Gould authored Always Say Maybe, described as a modern girl's guide to almost everything — but mostly men, published by Golden Press. Gould was twice married, first to broadcasting executive Larry Berns, with whom she had a son, Michael Berns, born in 1965, and later to television and film director Hollingsworth Morse. She died on July 20, 1999, in Burbank, California, of a stroke following heart surgery, three days before what would have been her 83rd birthday. She was cremated, and her ashes were returned to her son.