Минерва Пиус: Звезда Радио и «Аллее Аллена»

American actress

Minerva Pious (March 5, 1903 – March 16, 1979) was an American radio, television and film actress. She was best known as the malaprop prone Pansy Nussbaum in Fred Allen's famous "Allen's Alley" current events skits. In his book, Treadmill to Oblivion, Allen called Pious "the most accomplished woman dialectitian ever to appear in radio."

Pious was often invited to play Nussbaum on other radio programs, such as The Jack Benny Program (inviting him to her new restaurant: "We feature soft lights and hard salami") and Duffy's Tavern. She was cast in the radio plays of Norman Corwin (especially playing a Brooklynese crime solver in Murder in Studio One) and on the Columbia Workshop. In addition to comedy routines on Kate Smith's series, she was heard on shows hosted by Ed Wynn and Bob Hope, along with roles on The Goldbergs and the soap opera Life Can Be Beautiful. She also was heard on The Alan Young Show. "Minnie could do a million things," remembered Fred Allen Show writer Bob Weiskopf to author Jordan R. Young in The Laugh Crafters, a book gathering interviews with vintage radio comedy writers. "Nice lady. She had a physical affliction—she had a bad hip, a severe limp. She was very concerned about television; she never worked very much. But radio was fine."

The hip condition didn't stop Pious from making occasional television appearances, on shows such as The Colgate Comedy Hour and The Chevrolet Television Theatre. She appeared briefly in the television soap The Edge of Night in 1956, playing a landlady.

Her few film credits included playing Mrs. Nussbaum on camera in Allen's It's in the Bag! and a featured voice role in Pinocchio in Outer Space. She had small roles in the films Joe MacBeth (1955) and Love in the Afternoon (1957).

Pious recorded with Bud Freeman a skit based on Noël Coward's Private Lives called "Private Jives" for the Commodore Records label in 1938. Also on the record were Joe Bushkin (piano and trumpet) and announcer Everett Sloane. The record, according to Commodore, sold only 150 copies, all to friends of the artistes!

Pious died March 16, 1979, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, aged 76.