Joan Roberts
Joan Roberts ( born July 15, 1917 in New York City, New York State as Josephine Rose Seagrist; † August 13, 2012 in Stamford, Connecticut) was an American stage actress.
Life
Joan Roberts grew up in the north west of the borough Queens Astoria district. As a child she appeared in several feature films at Paramount Pictures as an extra. She received her youth singing lessons with the vocal coach Estelle favorite, who was also the teacher of the famous soprano Beverly Sills. Roberts initially worked in stage performances of the Shubert Brothers, mainly touring productions of musicals and operettas. At that time she also took on her stage name Joan Roberts.
In 1941, she was in the role of Madeleine Caresse her debut on Broadway in the short-lived musical Sunny River by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II; the production ran until 1942.
My greatest success was the role of the farmer girl Laurie Williams at the premiere of the musical Oklahoma! by Richard Rodgers. She sang this role for the first time on 31 March 1943 at the premiere at the St. James Theatre in New York City. Your partners were Alfred Drake in the male lead role of the cowboy Curly and Celeste Holm as Ado Annie; Rouben Mamoulian directed by. Roberts, who had a strong, clear, lyrical music theater ideally suitable soprano with recognition value had, originally, sung at the request Hammerstein, first for the role of Ado Annie. Hammerstein realized, however, that Roberts' voice better suited to the role of Laurie and gave her the female lead role. Roberts later sang the famous song Many a New Day, Out of My Dreams and, together with Drake, the duet People Will Say We're in Love. The premiere reviews especially praised the freshness of their presentation and their good singing voice.
After two years, in 1945 Roberts left the production of Oklahoma to accept a movie contract with David O. Selznick! ; planned film projects, however, were never realized. In the film version of Oklahoma! (1955 ) eventually played Shirley Jones the role of Laurie Williams.
After Oklahoma! Roberts appeared on Broadway or in the operetta Marinka (1945 ), a late work of Emmerich Kálmán, and in the musical Are You With It? (1945/1946) by Harry Revel and Arnold B. Horwitt. In the musical High Button Shoes by Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn in 1947 she took over the role of Sara Longstreet, Nanette Fabray who had played in the premiere.
Roberts also appeared in later years still on the theater stage. They mostly worked in local productions or summer theater Auffführungen with. She played lead roles among others in musical productions of Guys and Dolls, Too Many Girls by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, in the operetta Naughty Marietta by Victor Herbert and in the musicals Up in Central Park by Sigmund Romberg, Show Boat, Music in the Air by Jerome Kern and Carousel.
In 1998, she played the title role of Miss Daisy in the play Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry on the campus of Hofstra University in Hempstead on Long Iceland.
In 2001, she returned after 50 years back to Broadway. Roberts took a major role in the revival of the musical Follies by Stephen Sondheim; it embodied the old operetta star Heidi Schiller and sang the famous song One More Kiss.
Roberts also had a few roles in film and television; However, this played a very minor role in their career. In 1979, she had an episode role in the U.S. television series Fantasy Iceland.
In 2011 she School of the Arts of the University of North Carolina was honored; took them, together with her former colleague, Celeste Holm at a stage production of the musical Oklahoma! for templates of the original Iinszenierung. Roberts was since the death of Holm in July 2012, the last surviving leading actress of the premiere. At the beginning of 2012 they had given private voice lessons.
Her autobiography Stage Right was released in early summer of 2012 and was published by Kaufmann Publishing.
Private
Roberts was married twice. Her first husband, John Donlon, died 1965; from the marriage went forth a son, Jack Donlon. Roberts' second husband, the dentist Dr. Peter Alexander, died in 1993.
Roberts lived for many years in Rockville Centre on Long Iceland. She died at the age of 95 at her home in Stamford, Connecticut, from the effects of acute heart failure.