Leading Roles
Ladies - M thru Z

One of those show business rarities, a native New Yorker, Miss MacDonald is a Drama Award graduate of the High School of Performing Arts, a city-run institution dedicated to developing the talents of aspiring teen agers. She then went to New York University at night while auditioning in the daytime. One audition paid off when Richard Rodgers, himself awarded her the part of Sue in "South Pacific," when she was just 17. Her voice also carried her into that musical based on Offenbach's lovely music "The Happiest Girl in the World" when it opened on Broadway.

Off-Broadway has seen her in "Midguided Tour" and "The Sun Looks Down," both at the Fourth Street Theatre, and as Helen in "The Golden Apple" when it was reviewed at the York Theatre.

She has sung in many night clubs and boites throughout the country, and some highlights include the Blue Room of the Roosevelt in New Orleans, the Adolphus in Dallas, the Balmoral in Miami Beach, the Drake in Chicago, and the Lotus Club in Washington. New Yorkers have caught her night club act in such top sports as the Persian Room of the Plaza, the Stork Club, Le Cupidon and the Red Carpet. Vacationers have often been pleased to find Miss MacDonald at Grossinger's and The Concord among others.

On television, she has had almost a complete career in itself. She replaced Betsy Palmer as the third man (or, rather, girl) on Dave Garroway's marathon "Today" show in the mornings, and she starred in her own Dumont TV show entitled "Melody Street." In addition, she has played in any number of dramatic shows such as Studio One, Robert Montgomery, Motorola, Justice, True Story, Man Behind the Badge, and others.

The summers have found her trekking far and wide as Bianca in "Kiss Me Kate," and in "Where's Charlie?" in both the Dick Shawn and Billy Hayes packages. Another of her favorite tent shows is "Brigadoon." In that busy field, the industrial shows. Miss MacDonald has been active, starring at the Automobile Show in New York's Coliseum and for the Kellogg Company.

Elaine Malbin (born May 24, 1929 in New York City) is an American soprano who had a prolific international career singing in operas, musicals, and concerts from the 1940s through the 1960s. She made her Town Hall debut at the age of 14. She appeared in a number of Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s and notably portrayed Marsinah in the original 1953 West End production of "Kismet." She starred on Broadway in the title role of "My Darlin' Aida" and sang a season of Gilbert and Sullivan at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York.

She was a regular at the New York City Opera during the 1950s and 1960s with leading roles in "Love for Three Oranges," "Carmen" (Micaela), "Turandot" (Liù), "La Bohème" (Mimi) and "Don Giovanni" (Zerlina). She appeared with most of America's leading opera companies during this time as well, including the Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera. On the International stage she appeared at a number of opera houses and major music festivals in the United Kingdom, Italy, and France. She performed at the Glyndebourne and Edinburgh Festivals as well as "Madama Butterfly" with the Scottish Opera Company. She is perhaps best remembered for appearing in several opera roles live for television with the NBC Opera Theatre and for recording music with Mario Lanza for the 1951 film The Great Caruso.

Malbin appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, Perry Como, and Eddie Fisher Shows, in addition to multiple appearances on The Voice of Firestone and the Jack Parr and Johnny Carson Tonight Shows.

On July 4, 1962 Malbin sang at the special request of President John F. Kennedy at the Independence Day celebration at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Malbin also performed for President Nixon, President Truman and President Johnson.

Malbin retired at the height of her career in 1968. She returned to the stage in January 1979 as Cleopatra in Handel's "Giulio Cesare" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She also gave a recital at Alice Tully Hall the same year.

Source: wikipedia.org/

In addition to being a fine actress and dancer, Joan Mann was a noted choreographer. On Broadway she was in "Inside USA," Billion Dollar Baby," "Bloomer Girl," "Small Wonder," and the revival of "Of Thee I Sing." She did the choreography for "Tickets Please?" on Broadway.

Source: Music Circus Website Archives

Gail Manners has sung top roles with the New York City Center and the NBC-TV Opera companies, and she has given concerts with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestras. She has played leading roles in "Carousel," "The Desert Song," and "Oklahoma!" in major cities across the country.

This was Irene Manning debut at the Music Circus. She starred in Hollywood, on Broadway and in London. Her films have included 'The Desert Song," "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Make Your Own Bed," "The Big Shot, "Shine on Harvest Moon" and "Doughbills." On Broadway she was in "The Day Before Spring" and in London she starred in "Castle in the Air" and "The DuBarry Serenade". She toured in "The Second Man" opposite Franchot Tone. On television she co-starred with Cyril Ritchard in "The King and Mrs. Candle".

Source: Music Circus Website Archives

Miss Mathews is native to Camden, N. J. and upon graduation from Drexel Institute in Philadelphia found herself as executive secretary in fire insurance. With a song in her heart, however, she made her professional debut with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association, after which she stormed the ramparts of Broadway successfully, singing as an understudy in "Guys and Dolls," and later taking over the role of "Sarah Brown."

Other credits on the Main Stem include "Wish You Were Here," and as Tuptim in "The King and I." A Lambertville favorite, Miss Mathews has scored in the tents in "Paint Your Wagon," "Finian's Rainbow," "Kiss Me, Kate," "Fanny," "Oklahoma!," "Naughty Marietta," and "Brigadoon" among others.

Her television appearances have included "Stop the Music" and "The Paul Whiteman Show," and among her night club engagements she numbers the Statler Clubs around the country, New York's Versailles, and top South American clubs. She was featured in the City Center's brilliant revival of "Pal Joey" in 1961.

Miss McNamara played Lauretta in "The Decameron" off-Broadway and was "The Girl" when "The Fantasticks" played in Princeton. She has played leading roles in "Plain and Fancy," "New Moon," "Peter Pan," "Brigadoon," "Naughty Marietta," "Carousel," "Oklahoma!," "Irene," "Rosalinda," "The Student Prince," "Kismet," and "West Side Story," at such theatres as Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Detroit, Valley Forge, Warwick, Wallingford, Buffalo, and the Pocono and Papermill Playhouses.

She was featured in the Chevrolet industrial show for two years, and has made industrial films as well. Night clubs such as 1 Fifth Avenue, Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco, and the Dennis Hotel in Atlantic City are on Miss McNamara's list of credits as are various Caribbean cruises as an entertainer.

Julia Meade Kunz, born in Boston, MA on December 17, 1925 - May 16, 2016), was an American film and stage actress who was a frequent pitch person in live commercials in the early days of television in the 1950s. She moved with her family to Ridgewood, New Jersey when she was 10 years old and later graduated from the Yale School of Drama. Meade went to New York City and was hired as a model in 1948.

Meade came to public attention in 1953 as the public face of the Lincoln division of the Ford Motor Company. She did live commercials on The Ed Sullivan Show for such products as Kodak cameras and Life magazine for years, earning recognition from TV Guide as the "favorite salesgirl" of the program's host. Meade told Life magazine in 1960 that "I tackle commercials as though I were playing the queen in Hamlet". Meade's pitch work involved doing live commercials that ran for up to five minutes, becoming most closely associated with her promotions of Lincoln automobiles, with her work for the car company described by Gerald Nachman as "part auto dealer, part chic sexpot".

Meade and Zachary Scott were co-hosts of Spotlight Playhouse, a summer anthology program on CBS in 1959. In 1969-1971, Meade hosted the syndicated program Ask Julia Meade, a daily broadcast "in which she answered ... letters from the viewers" about family matters. In the mid-1970s, she had another syndicated program, Julia Meade and Friends, on cable television. She also was a host of Playhouse 90 and appeared as a panelist on What's My Line? and Get the Message.

Meade's work on Broadway included the 1954 production of "The Tender Trap," "Mary, Mary" in 1962 and "The Front Page" in 1969. She also appeared in "Roman Candle" and "Double in Hearts." Meade appeared in the 1959 movie Pillow Talk, 1961's Tammy Tell Me True, 1962's Zotz!, and in Presumed Innocent in 1990.

Meade died at the age of 90 on May 16, 2016, in her home in Manhattan.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Patricia Michon was born in 1925 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as Patricia Conzelman. She migrated to California and spent several seasons with the Santa Monica Opera Company doing "Carmen," "La Boheme," "Turandot," and "Don Giovanni." She also performed with the Cosmopolitan Opera company in San Francisco. Her other important appearances were with the Santa Barbara Music Festival, the Denver Bowl, and the Redland Bowl. She sometimes toured with the Hollywood Pops Symphony.

As an actress she was known for her TV roles in One Step Beyond (1959), The Saint (1962) and Thriller (1960).

Source: Music Circus Website Archives

Born Doretta Morano in Brooklyn, Doretta Morrow made her Broadway debut at the age of eighteen in the revival of the classic Victor Herbert/Henry Blossom operetta, "The Red Mill," in 1945. Frequently featured on early television variety shows from Ed Sullivan to Steve Allen, Morrow originated the role of Kitty Verdun in "Where's Charley?," Frank Loesser's 1948 musical adaptation of the celebrated stage play, Charley's Aunt.

Morrow had her first starring role as Tuptim in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 hit, "The King and I," and made her last Broadway appearance as Marsinah, Haji's daughter, in the original cast of "Kismet" in 1953. After reprising the role in London in 1955 and touring for several years, Morrow's last musical appearance came in London in 1959, in the role of The Princess in Cole Porter's "Aladdin."

Doretta Morrow made only one film, Because You're Mine, in 1952; she starred opposite the legendary Philadelphian singer, Mario Lanza.

Source: masterworksbroadway.com/

Patrice Munsel, an coloratura soprano who performed often at the Metropolitan Opera, and who took on theatre roles later in her career was born May 14, 1925, in Spokane, WA, was only 17 when, 1943, she won a audition at the Met through a program called "Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air." She became the youngest singer to make a debut at the opera house. She went on to perform on the Met stage more than 225 times over a 15-year period.

When she tired of the light, comedic roles the Met kept assigning her, she left the company in 1958 and began doing a wider range of operatic parts, as well as taking theatre parts around the U.S. She sang in shows like "The Sound of Music," "A Little Night Music," "Kisme "and "The King and I."

On Broadway, she was seen in the 1975 musical revue, "A Musical Jubilee," directed by Morton Da Costa, and co-starring Lillian Gish, Tammy Grimes, Larry Kert and John Raitt.

She sang on many of the popular talk and variety shows in the 1950s, and, during the 1957-58 season, she had her own television variety show, The " Munsel Show."

Source: playbill.com/

Britain's first notorious post-war sex siren in films, the enticing, green-eyed blonde bombshell Christine Norden, was a singer and dancer who had been performing since her teens. The story goes that she was "discovered" by agents of the distinguished film mogul Sir Alexander Korda while waiting outside a theatre ticket line.

Born Mary Lydia Thornton (December 28, 1924 in Sunderland, Tyne-and-Wear, England, UK) , she was the first entertainer to land on the Normandy beaches in 1944 to perform for Allied troops after D-Day. Korda promptly signed her to a seven-year contract and placed her in stark, dark-edged films as a fetching, sometimes singing femme; she appeared in a surprising number of quality films, including Mine Own Executioner (1947), An Ideal Husband (1947), Nightbeat (1947) and Saints and Sinners (1949).

A prime pin-up attraction over the years, she admitted to many affairs with both men and women. By the early '50s her film career was over, however, and she trod the New York theatre boards for the next few decades, making her Broadway debut in the musical "Tenderloin" in 1960 and appearing in such productions as "Marat/Sade." She made history of sorts as the first actress to appear topless on Broadway in the 1967 production of "Scuba Duba."

She eventually returned to London for her final years, developed a respiratory infection and died of lobar pneumonia following bypass surgery at age 63. Christine was married five times and has one of the craters of the planet Venus named after her as a tribute to her being a "forerunner of the modern sex symbol."

Source: IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh

Born in Manhattan, New York, Olivette's mother was a ballet dancer in her native Poland and after coming to the United States, she performed in vaudeville. As a girl, Olivette joined her mother's troupe in ballet performances, but after a leg injury prevented her from maintaining the balance needed to be a ballerina, she turned to combining dancing with comedy. She worked with Violet Carlson in a vaudeville act billed as the Lachmann Sisters. When she was 12, producers Jones and Green recruited her for one of their shows, taking her away from vaudeville.

On Broadway, Olivette appeared in "Music Box Revue," "Queen High," "George White's Scandals," "The Sweetest Little Devil," "Captain Jinks," and "Hold Everything!"

Much of Olivette's career was spent in comedic roles. Her first straight role came in Twin Beds (1954). She explained in 1930 that her routines were adaptations of existing dances rather than new creations. Starting with a dance such as the Black Bottom or Charleston, she said that she relaxed her muscles, "then [I] try to give the appearance of falling apart while performing it. The effect always seems to be funny."

Olivette designed women's fashion accessories, including handbags, scarves, and stoles. Her products made her "a particularly favorite designer with stage people and television stars". She also was a designer for Your Show of Shows on television in the early 1950s.

She was married to Harry Stockwell and was the stepmother of Dean Stockwell and Guy Stockwell.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Osterwald was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. As a student, Osterwald appeared in the Catholic University semi-pro revue in Washington, D.C., in August 1942. She gained acting experience in five years of work in summer stock theatre in Rockville, Maryland. She starred in "Ten Nights in a Barroom" at the Willard Hotel for 8 weeks starting in mid-August 1943. She then pursued a career on the New York stage. The Central Opera House [NYC], seating 2000, introduced Osterwald leading in "Broken Hearts of Broadway" in June 1944. "Miss Osterwald is on Broadway as one of the outstanding participants in 'Sing Out, Sweet Land.' What is more, next to stars Alfred Drake and Burl Ives, she has received the loudest praise of those critics who saw the play out of town.

Osterwald went on to appear in such Broadway shows as "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "Bus Stop," "Three to Make Ready," and "The Golden Apple," for which she won an Outer Critics Circle Award in 1953.

Starting in the late 1940s, Osterwald began appearing on television, continuing to do so through the end of 2001. She was best known for her television role of Stella O'Brien, the cranky housekeeper for the Hathaway family on the soap opera, Where the Heart Is in the 1970s and also as Mrs. Sophie Steinberg, the mother of David Birney and mother-in-law of Meredith Baxter on the comedy series, Bridget Loves Bernie. . She played Anita, who becomes an avid fan of "The Amazing Alonzo" (Vincent Price) in "The Love Boat" S2 E6 "Ship of Ghouls" (1978).

In 1982, she originated the role of Nanny McTavish, Holly Sutton's long-time confidante, on General Hospital. Her other roles included Mrs. Nakamura on The Absent-Minded Professor (1988). She was also a regular on The Imogene Coca Show (1954), Captain Billy's Showboat (1948) and Front Row Center (1949).

In the years just prior to her death in 2002, she was a voice actress for the cartoon series Rugrats. She also appeared in several films, including Parrish (1961), The World of Henry Orient (1964) (in which she had the role of Erica "Boothy" Booth), A Fine Madness (1966), Bank Shot (1974), Caddyshack II (1988) and As Good as It Gets (1997).

On January 2, 2002, Osterwald died of a lung ailment in Burbank, California, at age 81.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Ginny Perlowin set some kind of record, having opened in four Broadway shows in just two years—"Mr. Wonderfu," "Happy Hunting," "New Girl in Town," and "Rumple." In addition to several years of study at the Juilliard School of Music as a voice and opera major, she also has a graduate degree in nursing. After a classic experience with a touring opera company which left her broke and stranded in the wild west, she became a nursing supervisor. Two weeks later she gave this up to return to the footlights and was cast in her first Broadway show.

Muriel Ellen Rahn was born in Boston in 1911. After her father died, she moved with her mother to New York City. She studied at Columbia University and voice at Juilliard School of Music.

In 1929, she launched her professional career in New York City. One of her earlier appearances on Broadway was in the musical, "Come of Age" written and staged by Clamence Dane with music by Richard Addinsell. She co-founded the Rose McClendon Players with her husband, Dick Campbell and was one of the leading black concert singers of the mid-20th Century. She is perhaps best known for her starring role in the original Broadway production of Carmen Jones.

In 1950, Rahn made one of her last appearances on Broadway. Opposite operatic legend Lawrence Tibbett, she played the role of Cora Lewis in the musical, "The Barrier," based on the play, "Mulatto" by Langston Hughes. Later stage credits included the off-Broadway production of Sara Reavin's melodrama, "The Ivory Branch" with Diana Barrymore. In 1959, Rahn became the first black musical director of the German State Theater in Frankfurt.

Rahn died on August 8, 1961 at Sydenham Hospital in New York City from lung cancer.

Source: wikipedia.org/

Elise Rhodes was born March 8, 1927. She attended Juilliard School of Music and was an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts winner.

In 1947 she was a chorus member in the London production of "Oklahoma" and also toured in the US national road company of "Carousel." Later, she was featured in the hit review "Phoenix 55", and also combined this with an assignment on the Ted Mack TV show.

She made her debut in Lambertville in the 1954 season as Laurey in "Oklahoma!" Elise Rhodes was the female vocalist in Guy Lombardo's Diamond Jubilee musical television program, broadcast on CBS from March 20, 1956, until June 19, 1956. After that, she toured the country night club circuit with the "What's New" revue. In 1957 she retired from singing to raise a family.

St. Cyr was born in Minneapolis, MN, on June 3, 1918. Having taken ballet lessons throughout her youth, she began to dance professionally as a chorus line member at the Florentine Gardens in Hollywood. St. Cyr had to beg her manager at a club to let her do a solo act. From her self-choreographed act she eventually landed a bit part at a club called the Music Box in San Francisco. It was here that she found a dancer's salary was only a small fraction of the featured star's salary: the difference was that the featured star was nude.

In the 1940s and most of the 1950s, St. Cyr, Gypsy Rose Lee and Ann Corio were the most recognized acts in striptease. St. Cyr's stage name is a patronymic of the French aristocracy, which she first used when booked as a nude performer in Las Vegas.

St. Cyr's reputation in the burlesque and stripping world was that of a quality and high-class performer, unlike others such as Rosa La Rose, who flashed her pubic hair. Two years after she started her career as a chorus line dancer, her stripping debut was at the Music Box. The act was a disaster, but instead of firing her, the producer put together a new act. At the end of the dance, a stagehand pulled a fishing line attached to St. Cyr's G-string, which flew into the balcony as the lights went dim. This act was known as The Flying G, and such creative shows became St. Cyr's trademark. St. Cyr was also known for her pin-up photography.

St. Cyr depleted the wealth she earned during her heyday. Many women like her were not supported by their husbands or family. St. Cyr retired from the stage in the 1970s, and began a lingerie business that she retained an interest in until her death in 1999 at age 80. St. Cyr was married six times.

Marie Santell's Broadway credits include: "La Cage aux Folles," "Mack & Mabel," 1973 revival of "The Pajama Game," 1971 revival of "On the Town," "Flora, The Red Menace," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (understudied Philia), and "The Music Man."

Ms. Sherry appeared at the Music Circus in the 1954 season in "The Boys From Syracuse" and in "Kiss Me, Kate" and in the 1955 season in "The Merry Widow" as Vilia Barinkay. She has been leading lady at the St. Louis Municipal Opera, the Pittsburgh Civic Opera, and the Kansas City Starlight Theatre. On TV she appeared on "Your Show of Shows."

Just before performing at the Music Circus in 1962, Miss Smith was seen in the leading role in "Anything Goes" Off-Broadway. Also in 1962 she appeared at New York's City Center in a revival of "Fiorello!." Her other New York credits include "Best Foot Forward," "Ziegfeld Follies," and "Taboo Revue." She was a featured regular on the Ray Bolger TV series, and toured with Tallulah Bankhead in "Welcome Darlings." She traveled over 100,000 miles from the Northeast to Alaska to Asia in the Government sponsored revue, "Broadway-USA."

Marti Stevens (born in New York City on August 15, 1928 is a singer and actress. She has appeared in television shows such as It Takes a Thief, The Love Boat and Stagecoach West. She appeared in an Australian production of the play "Forty Carats" and in "High Spirits," the musical version of Blithe Spirit, in London's West End in 1964. In 1962, she had a role in the film All Night Long, a film with the British jazz-scene as its backdrop, based on Shakespeare's "Othello." She played the role of Delia Lane, wife of a black musician, Aurelius Rex, played by Paul Harris. They become victim to the devious and sinister meddling by musician Johnny Cousin, played by Patrick McGoohan. Stevens sings two songs in the film.

Source:wikipedia.org/

Elly Stone (May 30, 1927 - June 11, 2020) was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended The High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. She began her career in the 1950s, singing in a variety of off-beat venues ranging from a carnival to a burlesque show. She played Carnegie Hall in 1957 as part of a "Folk Jamboree," with Sonny Terry, Earl Robinson and others, and in 1958 with musical satirist Tom Lehrer. In 1962, she was Barbra Streisand's understudy for the Broadway musical "I Can Get It for You Wholesale."

In 1968, she achieved recognition as one of the stars of the Off-Broadway revue "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," which was co-written by her husband, Eric Blau. Although she appeared in other theatrical productions and enjoyed success as a cabaret and concert headliner, including a 1980 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City celebrating her 25th anniversary in the entertainment industry, Stone's identification with Brel remained strong.

Source:wikipedia.org/

A native of Louisville, KY, Miss Stuart attended the Greenbriar College for women, the Art Students League, and received a scholarship to the Actors' Lab in San Francisco. Her first professional job in the theatre was in a children's theatre company in San Francisco, from which she jumped to the far-out Purple Onioin night club. A night club tour across the country brought her to New York where she played in the Off-Broadway "Tiger at the Gates" and on Broadway in "Do Re Mi." She played "The Girl" in over 300 performances of the long-running hit, "The Fantasticks."

Temple Texas was born on October 7, 1924 in Arkansas as Dora Jane Temple. She got her start by modeling in Dallas TX where she changed he name to Temple Texas. Was a singer in the late 40s and briefly hosted a variety show on local TV. Ms Texas made her theatrical debut in Billy Rose's "Seven Lively Arts," after a successful career as a fashion model in New York as well as in her native Texas. Then followed "It Takes Two," and more recently Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Pipe Dream." In Hollywood she appeared in "Kiss Of Death" with Victor Mature and Richard Widmark, and on television she has been featured on Phil Silvers' original TV series. She was married to Joseph S. Schribman and Jackie Miles. She died on June 18, 1987 in Newport Beach, California

Broadway audiences have seen Virgina Vestoff in "From A to Z," and "Irma La Douce ." Miss Vestoff also played "Irma" in the road company production and before the Kennedy's in Washington, D. C. Chicago play-goers have seen her in "Put It In Writing," and she appeared at Tamiment for a season. Off-Broadway, she graced "Fallout," "The Crystal Heart," and "The Boyfriend ." Most recently, she was seen in the "Upstairs" show at New York's "Upstairs at the Downstairs."

The daughter of two vaudeville performers, Virginia Vestoff was orphaned at a young age. Her Russian-born father died when she was 7; her mother died two years later. Virginia went to live with relatives and escaped her sorrow by performing on stage. At age 12 she took third place on The Ted Mack Amateur Hour and soon had a professional gig in the Children's Chorus of the New York City Opera Company. She attended the New York High School for the Performing Arts.

Virginia made her Broadway debut in "From A to Z," and went on to play Daisy in "Baker Street," a Sherlock Holmes musical. in 1969, and received a Tony nomination. Chicago play-goers have seen her in "Put It In Writing" and she appeared at Tamiment for a season. Off-Broadway, she graced "Fallout," "The Crystal Heart" and "The Boyfriend." She has also performed in the "Upstairs" show at New York's "Upstairs at the Downstairs."

While Elizabeth Hubbard took a yearlong break from her Emmy-winning role of Dr. Althea Davis in the NBC soap The Doctors, Virginia played the role from 1969 to '70. In 1970 she joined the cast of "Dark Shadows." She played Samantha for four months, beginning in September 1970. After leaving "Dark Shadows" she continued to act; including parts in the film version of "1776" and Robert Altman's "A Wedding" (1978).

She died of cancer at age 42, in 1982.

Source: darkshadowsonline.com/
Excerpted from 'Barnabas & Company: The Cast of the TV Classic Dark Shadows', by Craig Hamrick. Copyright 2004. Used with permission.
Source: Music Circus Playbill.

Cousin of Jean Stapleton, Betty Jane attended Lincoln Junior High School, Rockford, Illinois and studied voice at the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, Illinois. She made her Broadway debut in 1944 when she succeeded 'Joan Roberts' in the role of Laurey in "Oklahoma!." She toured in the role from 1944 to 1946, then played it in London in 1947.

Other New York musical roles include leading roles in "Toplitzky of Notre Dame" (1946-47), and three shows in 1948: "Sleepy Hollow," the revue "Hilarities," and "As The Girls Go." She took over for Mary Hatcher during the run of "Texas, Li'l Darlin'" (1949), and took over for Martha Raye as Annie during a 1958 NYC City Center revival of "Annie Get Your Gun." She substituted (May 1961) for Lucille Ball as Wildcat Jackson in "Wildcat" and later succeeded Miss Ball in the same role; she also appeared on Broadway in the Noel Coward musical "Sail Away" (1961).

She starred in summer stock theatrical productions of such musicals as "South Pacific" (1955, 1963), "The Pajama Game" (1958), and "Annie Get Your Gun" (1961). She also was a popular night club performer. She made numerous television guest appearances during the 1950s and 1960s.

Patricia Wilson's Broadway credits include "Pipe Dream" (Nov 30, 1955 - Jun 30, 1956) and "Fiorello!" (Nov 23, 1959 - Oct 28, 1961) as Marie. Other shows include "Dennis the Menace," "Follies," "Gay Divorce," and the 1974 national tour of "Take Me Along, where she co-starred with Gene Kelly.

Evelyn Wyckofff is a graduate of the Broadway and national companies of "Oklahoma" in which she played Laurey. She made her professional debut in the road company of "Blossom Time" and has appeared on Broadway in "Babes in Arms," "Lady in the Dark," "The Lady Comes Across," and "Johnny 2 x 4." Between these engagements, Miss Wyckoff appeared with many Light Opera Companies throughout the Mid-West and South.

Emily Yancy was born on April 28, 1939 in New York City. She is an actress, known for "Nine Months" (1995), "The Abyss" (1989) and "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970).

Emily Yancy co-starred with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway in an all-Black cast of the hit Broadway musical, "Hello Dolly." It opened in 1967 and had a highly successful 3 three run.

Source imdb.com