Country music's first comedian, Minnie Pearl, entertained Grand Old Opry audiences for more than half a century. Her gingham dress, white stockings, and straw hat complete with $1.98 price tag dangling from it made her a figure recognized wherever country music was heard. Ploughboys and presidents responded to her contagious grin, her homespun humor, and her exuberant greeting. So familiar was her image that upon her death in March of 1996, commentators, columnists, and cartoonists alike pictured her entering the pearly gates and greeting St. Peter with her trademark, "How-dee! I'm just so proud to be here."

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon never planned to become a country comic. The sheltered, youngest daughter of conventionally conservative Southern parents and a product of Ward-Belmont, a Tennessee finishing school, she dreamed of becoming a fine dramatic actress. "I planned," she said, "to out-Bernhardt Bernhardt."

The character "Minnie Pearl" evolved...