Fannie Flagg spent a lot of time on Match Game. 435 episodes, apparently. Now, it’s not all available on FreeVee, but a fair amount of the show is, and it’s just a fascinating time capsule. But she was, it seems, notorious on the show for having absolutely dreadful spelling. The other regulars and the host would joke with her about it. But one day, a teacher was watching, and she said, “That woman is dyslexic.” She wrote in to Flagg, who says she’d never heard of the term before. Sure enough, a whole lot of things fell into place for her.

Fannie Flagg was born Patricia Neal, in fact, but of course we already had one of those. She had an hour to pick a new name. Her grandfather had told her that a lot of great vaudeville comedians were named Fannie, and a friend suggested the Flagg part. And her career was off. She’d written her first play at age ten—we seem to be having a weekend of prodigies—and she spent seven years competing in the Miss Alabama pageant, but it was when she started writing skits for a nightclub in New York in the ‘60s that she really began to make her way in the world.

One night, one of the performers was sick, and Flagg stepped in. Allen Funt was in the audience that night, liked what he saw, and hired her for Candid Camera. Through the ‘70s, she would go on to be a steady presence on the decade’s panel shows. Match Game, sure, but also Hollywood Squares, and a whole bunch of less familiar ones. And Celebrity Bowling, and The Dating Game, and What’s My Line? She was there as a funny, wacky, distinctly Southern presence through the decade. She’s frankly a lot more charming and personable than Gene Rayburn, if you want my opinion.

After her parents died, she released a novel initially called Coming Attractions, later rereleased under her preferred title of Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. It is an enormously fun book; it’s loosely based on Flagg’s own childhood, it seems, which is why she waited for her parents’ death. She would go on to release a whole bunch more books, including her best-known, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. (Yes, there’s a cookbook. Yes, she wrote it herself. Yes, I own it.) The books are clever and wacky and distinctly Southern—a comedic branch of the Southern Gothic tree.

Oh, Flagg did some acting for other people, too. She was on the pilot of Wonder Woman as an Amazon doctor, which is certainly a casting choice. She was in Five Easy Pieces. Some of My Best Friends Are, which shares at least one theme with Fried Green Tomatoes and Flagg’s own life. And, of course, she did a small role as a teacher in Fried Green Tomatoes, as will happen in Hollywood sometimes, especially when the author is also known as an actor. She has had an extraordinarily colourful life, one that would fit easily into her own books. Which, I suppose, is why they’re all at least partially autobiographical.

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