| Benay Venuta | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 27, 1911 London, England |
| Died | September 1, 1995 (aged 84) New York City |
Benay Venuta (January 27, 1911–September 1, 1995) was an American actress, singer and dancer.
Born Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco, Venuta attended finishing school in Geneva and lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the States. She made her first screen appearance in the silent Trail of '98 in 1928. She also appeared in Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Mister, and Bullets Over Broadway.
Venuta made her Broadway debut when she replaced Ethel Merman in the lead role of Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter's Anything Goes in 1935. The two remained close friends and co-starred in a revival of Annie Get Your Gun in 1966. Additional Broadway credits included By Jupiter (1942), Hazel Flagg (1953), and Romantic Comedy (1979). In 1958, she was cast as private eye Bertha Cool in a television pilot for a series to be called Cool and Lam, based on the novels by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A. A. Fair, but the pilot remains the only episode in existence.
Venuta's summer stock and regional theatre credits included A Little Night Music, Bus Stop, Gypsy, Come Blow Your Horn, Auntie Mame, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Little Me, and Pal Joey.
Venuta was a vocalist on such shows as Freddie Rich's Penthouse Party, Duffy's Tavern and Take a Note. In 1948, she was the host of Keep Up with the Kids, a Mutual radio quiz show in which celebrity parents (Roddy McDowall, Penny Singleton, Pat O'Brien) competed against their children.
Television audiences knew her as Jean Smart's prim and proper mother-in-law Ellen Stillfield in the sitcom Designing Women.
Venuta was married and divorced three times. She had two daughters from her second marriage to film producer Armand Deutsch. She was married to actor Fred Clark from 1952–62. She died from lung cancer in New York City at age 84.