Joan McCracken (December 31, 1917 – November 1, 1961) was an American dancer, actress, and comedian who became famous for her role as Silvie ("The Girl Who Falls Down") in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!. By age 11, she was studying dance with Catherine Littlefield. She dropped out of high school to join Littlefield's ballet company. She was a student of George Balanchine in the first year of the School of American Ballet (SAB).
McCracken toured Europe and danced at Radio City Music Hall before creating the role of Sylvie.
She made a strong impression on the 1947 version of the movie Good News in the role of vivacious Babe Doolittle. Her number "Pass That Peace Pipe" was a standout, but her movie career never took off. According to her biographer, she told Truman Capote about her reactions to her brother's death, and he "used her violent tantrum in the Bloomer Girl dressing room as the model for a scene in his popular novella Breakfast at Tiffany's.[1]
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She was married to Jack Dunphy, whom she divorced on March 6, 1951, and then to dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse from December 1952 to 1959.[2]
McCracken was diagnosed in her teens with Type-1 diabetes. Reliable treatment for the disease was not yet then available, and her career was severely hampered as a result, despite her conscientiousness with regard to her condition. Through luck and determination, she persevered better than most; but long-term complications inevitably set in, and inherited heart problems (both of her parents died of heart attacks in their early 40s) damaged her health further, forcing her to turn down numerous offers of work in the mid- and late 50s. She died in her sleep, of a heart attack, in 1961 on Fire Island, New York, aged 43.