Pearl Daniels, 84; Booking Agent Who Inspired Her Own Fan Club

One minute she was talking to her friend Irene Ryan, who played ``Granny'' in television's ``Beverly Hillbillies.'' The next minute it was Sophie Tucker, Jimmy Durante or Sammy Davis Jr.

Funeral services were held Wednesday for Pearl Daniels, longtime Seattle booking agent, once described as a ball of fire, a woman who could wheel and deal with the best of them in the pressure-cooker world of talent and temperament.

When Mrs. Daniels died last Sunday at age 84 of heart failure, she left behind her own fan club - people who loved her show-business stories and appreciated her generosity, particularly to Children's Hospital & Medical Center.

``I could spend days with her; she was the most fascinating conversationalist I've ever met,'' said Sharon Friel, a Children's Hospital trustee.

Friel met Mrs. Daniels four years ago when she donated more than 100 autographed photographs of famous movie stars, collected over the years, to the hospital's uncompensated-care fund.

Pearl Daniels and her husband, Joe, sometimes known as ``Mr. Show Business of Seattle,'' ran Eastern Circuit Vaudeville, a booking agency perhaps better known in New York and Los Angeles than in Seattle. The agency was housed for years in the Orpheum Building, now the site of the Westin Hotel.

When Times columnist John Reddin wrote about Pearl Daniels 25 years ago, she was gushing about what was then the highlight of her booking-agent career: signing, on the same day, Ted Lewis (who sang ``Me and My Shadow'') at the Lake City Elks, and Sophie Tucker at the Everett Elks.

Mrs. Daniels took time from her job to volunteer for the hospital's Thrift Shop. For years, she was active in the Ruth Clise Colwell Guild, which raised money for the hospital. She sometimes used show-business connections to raise money for the hospital and often encouraged friends to join her in making donations to the hospital.

She was born Adeline Pearl Klenman in Saskatchewan, Canada. She grew up in Manitoba and then moved to the U.S., first to Portland, then to Seattle, She met Joe Daniels in 1934, the year he opened his booking agency.

They married in 1936, and operated the business until retirement in 1978. She called him ``the boss.'' He said she was his ``good right arm.''

For 53 years, until Joe's death in 1989, it was a fruitful partnership, with many wonderful friendships and enough memories to last several lifetimes, as their only child, daughter Joy Daniels Brower, put it.

``She was a wonderful mother and friend to me all my life,'' she said.

In addition to Joy and her husband, John Brower, survivors include brothers Phillip Klenman, Seattle; Allan Klenman, Victoria, B.C.; Norman Klenman, Salt Spring Island; B.C., and sisters Betty Brashen, Seattle, and Charmaine Klenman, Santa Barbara, Calif.