Dorothy Loudon

Kinetic blonde comedienne and delightful mugger Dorothy Loudon had the confidence and talent to make anything or anyone around her funny. The veteran singer/entertainer earned the respect of theatergoers long ago with her hilarious, fully played-out characters on the nightclub and cabaret scene as well as the award-winning musical stage and in revues.

The beloved entertainer was born in Boston on September 17, 1925 and grew up in both Indianapolis and Claremont, New Hampshire. Her mother, Dorothy Helen Shaw, was a department store piano player who taught Dorothy how to sing as well as tickle the ivories while making certain she attended dance classes regularly. Dorothy earned a drama scholarship to Syracuse University, which led to her transferring to the Emerson College and then the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Starting out as a nightclub chanteuse in 1954, a club owner happened to see her potential for satire and farce and encouraged her to parody her torchy vocal style. She proved a tremendous hit caricaturing everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Shirley Temple in her act and headlined all the best clubs and cabarets, from the Ruban Bleu and Persian Room to the Blue Angel. Over the years the boisterous blonde developed a strong cult audience in New York and in revues.

Despite a regular role on the short-lived TV sitcom It's a Business (1952) and guest appearances on such shows as "Stump the Stars," "Dupont Show of the Month," "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show," The Tonight Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show," it was Garry Moore and his making her a Golden Globe-winning regular on his variety series in 1962 that opened major doors and gave Dorothy her highest TV profile yet. In addition to gracing a number of talk/variety shows such as "The Mike Douglas Show," "The Merv Griffin Show," "The Dean Martin Show," "The Milton Berle Show," "The Jonathan Winters Show," and others, she became a frequent game show panelist ("Password," "The Match Game").

Back in 1962, Loudon made her stage debut in "The World of Jules Feiffer," directed by Mike Nichols. That same year Dorothy went on to win a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the musical "Nowhere to Go But Up." An absolute master at the slow take, her comic wackiness somehow never managed to jell in films or series TV the way it should have -- perhaps her delightfully saucy eccentricities maybe a bit too big or too much to take. She starred in the short-lived sitcom Dorothy (1979) and made only two movies during the course of her career. She was a hit when she toured for six months in the hit show "Luv" in 1965-66. This was followed by front-and-center roles in "The Fig Leaves Are Falling" (Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination, 1969), "Three Men on a Horse" (1969), "Lolita, My Love" (1971), "Plaza Suite" (1971), "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1971), "The Women" (1973) and "Winning Is Better" (1974).

It only got better for Dorothy. She reached her absolute theatre glory with the irreverent role of Miss Hannigan in the colossal 1977 Broadway musical hit "Annie." Winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her campy, no-holds-barred performance and songs "Little Girls" and "Easy Street," she would suffer a huge disappointment when Carol Burnett, whom she replaced on The Garry Moore Show (1958), was signed to play the role on film. Other major theater highlights included playing the role of widow Bea Asher in the Broadway musical "Ballroom" (Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination, 1979); replacing Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" in 1980; co-starring opposite Katharine Hepburn in "West Side Waltz" in 1981; received comedy acclaim for her 1983 portrayal of middle age TV star Dotty Otley in "Noises Off" on Broadway (losing again to Burnet for the film role); and appeared in the 1985 Jerry Herman revue "Jerry's Girls."

Like the legendary Carol Channing and Ethel Merman, the eccentric Dorothy was a larger-than-life personality that TV and film found difficult to restrain. She starred in the sitcom Dorothy (1979) in which she portrayed a former showgirl teaching music and drama at a boarding school for girls, but the show was canceled after one season. She also appeared briefly (1993) on the daytime soap All My Children (1970). She would only be featured in only two films, that of an agent in the film Garbo Talks (1984) and an off-the-wall eccentric in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).

The theatre remained Dorothy's refuge. An attempt to cash in on her Miss Hannigan character and the "Annie" phenomenon with "Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge (1990) failed when it closed in Washington, D.C. before making it to Broadway. She also graced the shows "Comedy Tonight" (1994), "Show Boat" (as Parthy Hawkes) (1996), "Sweet Adeline" (1997) and "Over and Over" (1999).

Diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2002, Dorothy was forced to leave the Broadway production of "Dinner at Eight" that November. She died of complications on November 15, 2003 at age 78.