Leading Roles
Ladies - A thru L

Carla Alberghetti (born 24 June 1939) made her singing debut at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1955, singing "Un bel di" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. In 1960 she appeared in a touring production of the musical "Kismet" opposite baritone Gordon MacRae.

Carla Alberghetti took over the role of Lili in "Carnival" from her older sister, Anna Maria Alberghetti, who had won a Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for the part, before it closed on Broadway in 1963, and took the show on the road, starring opposite Ed Ames and Ray Danton. In July 1961, she played Cinderella in the musical "Cinderella" at the Starlight theatre in Kansas City.

Alberghetti made guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Tonight Starring Jack Paar and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She headlined at many nightclubs and resorts, including the Riviera, Tropicana and Harrah's in Las Vegas.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Claire Alexander began her career as a child star on her native Pittsburgh's radio station WCAE on the Uncle Dick Show which starred Dick Powell. She appeared as concert soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Bell Symphony, among others, and sang leading roles in the operas, "The Medium," "The Magic Flute," "Tales of Hoffman," and "Rigoletto." She appeared in summer stock at such theatres as the Bucks County Playhouse, the Paper Mill Playhouse, and the Pittsburgh Playhouse, the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, and in musical tents at Oakdale, Skaneateles, and Warwick. On television she appeared on the Perry Como Show, Omnibus, and the United Steel Hour.

Source: Music Circus Website Archives

Miss Ashley first trod the boards in "Ballet Ballads" for ANTA at the Maxine Elliot and Music Box Theatres in New York. The following year she played in "The Liar" at the Boardhurst, and then was auditioned over the phone at midnight by Cole Porter for her role in "Out of This World."

In such major summer theatres as St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Hyannis, Charlotte, Cape Cod, Meadowbrook, Cincinnati and others she has played leading roles in "Can-Can," "Kiss Me, Kate," "The Boy Friend," Julie in "Show Boat," and Lady Thiang in "The King and I." Club dates have included the Nautilus in Miami Beach, The Old New Orleans Club in Washington, and the Park Towers in Houston. She has given pop concerts at Lewisohn Stadium, Yale Bowl, Grant Park in Chicago, and in Milwaukee, Rochester, and Cleveland.

Miss Ashley has played in industrial shows and was mistress of ceremonies of Cerebral Palsy Telethons in Boston, Rome, Ga., Wichita, Kans., Easton, Pa., and others.

She won the London Theatre Arts Award and the Richard Watts, Jr. "Stardust Citation," as well as the Philadelphia Players Award and the Theatre Guild Award. She has been featured on recordings of "Out of This World," "Pal Joey," and "Body in the Seine."

Bal's first stage appearance came in "Gypsy Lady." She also appeared on Broadway in the musical "The Gay Life," introducing the song "Why Go Anywhere At All?" During the run, Bal was given a different song to sing in the same spot, "You're Not the Type." Her other Broadway credits include "Call Me Madam" (1950), "Great to Be Alive!" (1950), and "Alive and Kicking" (1950). She also toured the United States in productions of "Guys and Dolls" and "South Pacific," among other shows.

Bal was a regular cast member on the ABC comedy Sid Caesar Invites You (1958). In the 1959-60 season, she featured in the short-lived NBC sitcom Love and Marriage, which ran during the 1959 season, as Pat Baker, the business partner of her father (William Demarest), the founder of a failing music publishing company.

In 1961, Bal became a regular on the sitcom Bachelor Father, but left shortly afterwards. Her other television credits include four appearances on Perry Mason. She also appeared in guest roles on Bonanza, Riverboat, Wagon Train, and I Spy. In the original Star Trek series episode "The Man Trap" (1966), she played a lethal shape-shifting alien which craves salt.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Helena Bliss was born as Helena Louise Lipp in St. Louis, Missouri on December 31, 1917. Her parents were Albert Lipp and Augusta Clemens. She was educated at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1947 she married actor and singer John Tyers who starred opposite her is several productions and performed with several notable opera companies; including the Metropolitan Opera.

In August 1944 Bliss made her Broadway debut as Nina Hagerup in "Song of Norway" at the Imperial Theatre to enthusiastic reviews. The show ran for more than 800 performances, and its cast recording was listed as one of Billboard's most popular releases of March 1945. She later portrayed the role of Countess Louisa Giovanni in the 1952 revival of "Song of Norway" at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera.

She returned to Broadway for the last time as Julie in the 1954 revival of "Show Boat." She later toured the United States in that role in 1956-1957. In 1959 she starred in Rodgers and Hart's "Pal Joey" at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. Her only major film work was as Valencienne in the 1955 television production of Franz Lehár's "The Merry Widow."

Source: wikipedia.org/

Born Fay Blossom Mogul in 1930 in Bismarck, North Dakota, Lisa Carroll Fay wanted to pursue a career in opera singing, but first she entered UCLA as a music and drama major. She took part in numerous theater shows and slowly but surely gained experience. Ultimately, she never finished her degree because she got an offer to be in pictures and got a gig in the Pasadena playhouse.

Fay appeared in only a few movies and some TV shows. Her first movie was River of No Return, where she played a dance girl. Her next movie was Battle Cry and then The Shrike and One Desire, a typical Universal drama of the 1950s. In 1953, Fay was in a very serious car accident that could have ended not only her career but literary her life. After recovering, she began a career in cabaret and musical theater, landing the part as Carol Channing's understudy in "Hello Dolly."

Source: obscureactresses.wordpress.com/

Born in Boston, Miss Chaney studied under Michael Chekhov and the Blair Cutting School of Drama in Beverly Hills. Her first professional appearance was in a night club revue entitled "Sadie Thompson" in Palm Springs, and New York first saw her in the abortive "Portofino" in 1958. One of her favorite roles includes Sharon in "Finian's Rainbow." She co-directed an industrial show with Harry Walker, and was standby for Gwen Verdon in "Redhead." Off-Broadway saw her 1958 as the lead of "0 Say Can You See," and she also has played Laura in "The Glass Menagerie" in California. Televiewers caught her in "Sugarfoot," "The Joseph Cotton Show," "Father Knows Best," a TV adaptation of "Gaslight," "Alfred Hitchcock," "Wagon Train," and "Playhouse 90." She appeared in the movie "My Gun Was Quick."

Born Shirley Elizabeth Crosman in 1916, the international star, Miss Conway's career spanned Europe, New York, and Australia. She starred In the Australian and United States touring companies of "Auntie Mame." Her Broadway credits include "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," and "Pal Joey." Miss Conway became a star in the hit musical "Plain and Fancy," which she duplicated in the London production. Television views know her from The Sid Caesar Hour (1950s) and The Nurses (1960s). She moved to Washington State in 1972, where she was the founding member of the Harstine Island Theatre Club, and starred in productions there into her 80s. She died in 2007.

Source: Music Circus Website Archives
Source: wikipedia.org/

Sheila Copelan chose theatre as her life's work shortly after her fifth birthday when she portrayed a duck in a nursery class and decided she and acting were made for each other. Born in Maplewood, New Jersey, Sheila began by entertaining her neighborhood friends with her puppets and marionettes and as her skill increased she appeared regularly on the Dumont television network. She also appeared on that network as Penny on the Funny Bunny Show. Her first formal dramatic training was at Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and after graduation she studied with famed acting coach Lee Strassberg. On television she has appeared on You Are There, Frontiers of Faith, and Mr. Peepers and her summer stock appearances include roles in "Life With Mother," "The Member of the Wedding," "Charley's Aunt," and Pygmalion. Off-Broadway she appeared in "What Price Glory?,"" The Miser," and "Song of Songs" before she was chosen to play opposite Hal March in the National Tour of "Two for the Seesaw."

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, she was one of twelve children of Italian immigrant parents. While still in her teens, Corio's good looks and shapely physique landed her showgirl roles that led to her becoming a hugely popular striptease artist. Her rise to stardom as a featured performer began on the Mutual burlesque circuit in 1925. She later worked at Minsky's Burlesque in New York City and Boston's Old Howard Theatre.

After Mayor Fiorello La Guardia closed down New York City's burlesque houses in 1939, Corio made her way to Los Angeles. Between 1941 and 1944 she appeared in several Hollywood "B" motion pictures which featured her in scanty costumes (beginning with 1941 Swamp Woman), the best known of which was perhaps 1942's Jungle Siren opposite Buster Crabbe. In 1944 she made Call of the Jungle and Sarong Girl. A year earlier Corio was guest armchair detective on radio's The Adventures of Ellery Queen, on the January seventh episode entitled, "The Adventure of the Singing Rat". With the Second World War on, she became one of the volunteer pin-up girls for YANK magazine, appearing in the September 3, 1943, issue of the weekly U.S. Army publication. Corio appeared in "The Ghost in the Sea Blue Dress," the January 23, 1955 episode of NBC's Adventures of the Archers radio show,

Corio had a long successful career dancing on stage. In 1962 she put together the nostalgic off-Broadway show This Was Burlesque which she directed and in which also performed. In 1968, she wrote a book with the same title. Her fame was enduring enough that in the 1970s—when Corio was long retired and in her sixties—she twice was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. During this same period, she took "This Was Burlesque" out on the summer stock circuit for several seasons. In 1981, the show played Broadway at the old Latin Quarter, which was then known as the Princess Theatre, and tried to compete with Sugar Babies which was running just a few blocks up the street. In 1985, she mounted the show for the second to last time in downtown Los Angeles, at the Variety Arts Theatre, where it did not have a good run. A year or so later, the show played a dinner theatre in Florida, where it closed for good.

A resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey, Corio died at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood, New Jersey, on March 1, 1999, aged 89.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she was one of five daughters of a French baker, and she was college educated, studying at the University of Dijon. According to a friend, whom she met in Paris during World War II, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft on VJ Day to see the celebration from the air. The pilot, James Helinger Sr., a US Army Air Corps glider pilot (a friend) was at the controls, while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below.

A winner of the title "The Most Beautiful Girl in France," Darcel was a cabaret singer in Paris after World War II before being spotted by Hollywood. Denise came to the United States in 1947 and became an American citizen in 1952.

Darcel's debut on the legitimate stage came in 1950, when she appeared in "Pardon Our French," premiering 5 October at the Broadway Theatre.

Source: wikipedia.org/

A show-business veteran while still in her early twenties, Fay DeWitt has been trouping since the age of five. The comedienne-singer has appeared as a regular with Dave Garroway and has guest starred on many TV shows including Jack Paar, Car 54, Steve Allen, and GE Theatre.

Her night club engagements range from such spots as the El Rancho in Las Vegas to The Colony in London and include such New York bistros as the Blue Angel and the Bon Soir.

No stranger to the stage, she has sung "Annie Get Your Gun," "Finian's Rainbow," "Bells Are Ringing," and on Broadway was starred in David Merrick's "Vintage '60." Before her performance here, she completed a TV pilot film for Screen Gems, sang Ado Annie in the new Epic Album of "Oklahoma," recorded the material she performed in the New York production of "Shoestring '57" in an album of the same name, and she has a release of special material entitled "Through Sick and Sin." Before her appearance at the Music Circus, she completed an engagement at the New York City Center in "Oklahoma!"

Singer-dancer Miss D'orso was born in Hawaii and gained her early experience in the Community Theatre and on weekly television shows in her native Hawaii. Arriving in California, she worked for a year and a half in Hollywood, singing and dancing in movie musicals, on television (The Milton Berle Show), and in night clubs (Moulin Rouge).

In addition to her singing, acting and dancing, she is an excellent swimmer and for three months she performed with the Aquacade Show in London.

Miss D'orso first appeared on Broadway in "Ziegfeld Follies," and had a featured role in "Kaleidoscope" off-Broadway. She was Ivy Smith in the revival of "On the Town" at the Carnegie Playhouse, and has done such roles as Anita in "West Side Story," Maribelle in "Billion Dollar Baby," and Rose Grant in "Bye Bye Birdie," in musical summer theatre. Her previous Broadway role was as Princess Kura, the "belly dancer" in "Mr. President."

Movies include "The Ten Commandments," "Cha Cha Boom" and "It Conquered the World," and in addition to many "specials" on television, she has made numerous appearances both solo and with Peter Gennaro on the Ed Sullivan Show. Other TV credits are Steve Allen, Garry Moore, Perry Como, Andy Williams, The Hit Parade, Sid Caesar, The Tonight Show, and Paris a la Mode. She was assistant choreographer to Donn Arden for the "Paris Revue" in Las Vegas.

Ms. Errolle retired to Sarasota, FL in the mid 1980s to be with friends and to dabble in local theater after a long career based in New York. The daughter of opera star Ralph Errolle Smith, she was born in Los Angeles while her father was on tour.

In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, Ms. Errolle was a leading light in New York's opera circles, performing title roles in La Traviata and La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera, and singing opposite her father, a tenor, in Carmen, Faust, and other operas.

She also became known for the roles she played in Broadway shows, appearing often in regional performances of Kiss Me Kate and Merry Widow. She was in the first national company of The Sound of Music, playing the baroness Elsa.

In her last known performance, she played Mother Abbess in an early '90s production of The Sound of Music at the Golden Apple in Sarasota. In that role, as the nun who mentors Maria, she gave a tear-inducing rendition of "Climb Every Mountain."

She died at her home in Sarasota in 2002 under suspicious circumstances.

Source: saintpetersburgtimes.com

David Shengold, who writes about the arts for Time Out New York, Playbill, Opera News, and other venues. makes this contribution in response to the information from the Saint Petersburg Times shown above:
"May I point out that Marthe Errolle, according to the Metropolitan Opera's Online Annals, never sang there at all, at least under that name; her father certainly did. Nor *could* a singer perform the "title role" in LA BOHEME!"

Ms. Gillespie played Lady Anne in the original Broadway production of "Camelot" and appeared in "Ernest in Love" a musical version of "The Importance of Being Ernest" at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 1960.

Gloria Hamilton was first seen at the Music Circus as Julie Jordan in "Carousel" in 1952. She made her professional debut as guest soloist with Edgar Bergen; then followed a tour of the South Pacific in "Oklahoma!" in which she played Laurey. Her Broadway debut was in the same show. Her other New York shows include "The Chocolate Soldier" in 1947, "Lend an Ear" in 1950, "Courtin' Time" in 1951, and "Ankles Aweigh" in 1955.

Nancy Haywood has performed in eight Broadway Productions including "Milk & Honey," "George M!," "The Education of Hyman Kaplan" and "Pickwick." She has been in more than thirty Regional and Stock Companies playing leading roles in such productions as "Kiss Me, Kate," "The Armored Dove" and "The Music Man."

Her Off-Broadway credits include "Morning Sun" and "Too Much Johnson." Miss Haywood has co-starred with Donald O'Connor in his reviews including at Sahara's in Las Vegas, Harrah's in Lake Tahoe and with the Dallas Symphony.

Her Television credits include featured performances on the "Philadelphia Children's Hour," "The Bell Telephone Hour," "The Ed Sullivan Show" and CBS's "Look Up and Live."

Miss Haywood has been a frequent speaker and singer for the Women's Aglow, the North and South Shore Christian Woman's Association, and for numerous churches and fellowships, including the Prison Fellowship Organization, Christian Businessmen's Day of Prayer, and Praise Fest. She has also been the guest soloist in productions of Handel's Messiah. Recently, Miss Haywood has been in a concert production of "Abraham & Sarah," a New Musical headed for film portraying the Lead role of Sarah.

Source: www.efmmusco.com/
Photo Source: www.efmmusco.com/

Mimi Kelly was born on August 16, 1922 in New York City, New York, USA as Valerie Raymond. She was an actress and TV producer, known for The Man Behind the Badge (1953), Broadway Television Theatre (1952) and American Experience (1988). She was married to David Charles Klein and Richard Boone. She died on October 14, 1995 in Wawarsing, New York.

Source: imdb.com/

Miss King was Lily in "Carnival" at the Palm Beach Musicarnival, and Kathie in "The Student Prince" at the same place. At the Papermill Playhouse and at Mineola she starred in "Bye Bye Birdie," and she has played leading roles off Broadway.

She was in "Show Boat," "Oklahoma!," "The Lark," "Kiss Me, Kate," in stock, and was Jenny Lind in a Barnum Festival at Bridgeport. Fourteen weeks singing in the Village Barn in Greenwich Village led to two separate spots on the Johnny Carson Tonight" television show in 1962. A graduate from the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy in Milford Conn., tiny Miss King, who stands all of 5' 1" and weighs 95 pounds, seems destined to carry more than her weight in show business.

Sybil Lamb made her professional debut in "Lend an Ear" and was in "Where's Charlie" and "Wish You Were Here" on Broadway. In stock she has brightened stages in "Carousel," "New Moon," "Wonderful Town," "Oklahoma!," "Call Me Madam," and "South Pacific." She spent a season in Guy Lombardo's production of "Arabian Nights" at Jones Beach. She was standby in this same role in the original production of the show.

Miss Lamkin was a voice major at the North Texas State University. She appeared on Broadway in "Camelot" in 1960 and "Do I Hear a Waltz" in 1965. Regionally she appeared as Nina in "Song of Norway," and as Fiona in "Brigadoon."

Marilyn Landers has become a Music Circus favorite after starring in previous performances of "The Merry Widow," "The Student Prince," and "Desert Song," She made her stage debut in a Los Angeles production of "Oklahoma!," as understudy to one of the leads and eventually took over the role. A winner of the San Francisco Opera Company auditions, Miss Landers has sung principal roles in a number of operas. Broadway audiences saw her in "Bye Bye Birdie." Massachusetts-born and Connecticut-educated, she lived with her family in Washington, DC.

A veteran night club performer, Ms Lewis performed at such leading clubs as The Versailles and the Blue Angel in New York. On television she appeared on the Jackie Gleason Show. In 1957 she had a leading role in the Off-Broadway revue, "Kaliedescope." In 1978 she won a Drama Desk Award portraying a teacher in "Working" on Broadway. Bobo Lewis was most famous for her role as gossip Midge Smoot on the children's television series Shining Time Station. She remained with the show for its entire run from 1989-1993. Lewis would later appear in three succeeding Shining Time Specials in 1995. Her other television appearances include roles on sitcoms such as Bewitched, The Monkees, That Girl and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Bobo was seen in a handful of well-known films including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), Way...Way Out (1966) Can't Stop the Music (1980), Arthur (1981) Her Alibi (1989), Miami Blues (1990) and The Paper (1994). Lewis died on November 6, 1998, at New York Hospital in Manhattan.

Source: Music Circus Website Archives
Source: wikipedia.org/

Abbey Lincoln (born: Anna Marie Wooldridge) (August 6, 1930 — August 14, 2010), was an American jazz vocalist and songwriter. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards as well as writing and singing her own material.

In 1956 Lincoln appeared in The Girl Can't Help It, for which she wore a dress that had been worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and interpreted the theme song, working with Benny Carter.

With Ivan Dixon, she co-starred in Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer. In 1968 she co-starred with Sidney Poitier and Beau Bridges in For Love of Ivy and received a 1969 Golden Globe nomination for her appearance in the film.

Television appearances began in 1968 with The Name of the Game. In March 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston, in one of a 10-episode series of individual dramas written, produced and performed by blacks, "On Being Black," was her work in Alice Childress's Wine in the Wilderness. She appeared in Mission: Impossible (1971), the telemovie Short Walk to Daylight (1972), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1974), and All in the Family (1978). In the 1990 Spike Lee movie Mo' Better Blues, Abbey Lincoln played the young Bleek's mother, Lillian.

Lincoln died on August 14, 2010, in Manhattan, eight days after her 80th birthday.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Denise Lor was an American popular singer. She was a featured artist on Garry Moore's television show. Her main hit was "If I Give My Heart to You," which charted in 1954 at the same time as another recording of the same song by Doris Day.