Lisa Kirk

Actress/singer Lisa Kirk enjoyed a long career primarily as a nightclub entertainer, although she also created featured roles in Broadway musicals, acted on television shows, made some recordings, and even worked anonymously as a Hollywood "ghost singer," replacing the voice of Rosalind Russell in the 1962 film Gypsy. She was born Elise Marie Kirk in Charleroi, PA, on February 25, 1925, and raised in Roscoe, PA. Her father, George Kirk, sang in vaudeville and took his daughter on-stage as a child. As a teenager, she studied music and dance at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. In 1944, she was a big-band singer with Jimmy Palmer & His Orchestra in Baltimore. After moving to New York and getting jobs in nightclubs and in the theater, she was cast in a featured part in the Broadway musical Allegro, written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which allowed her to sing the most memorable song in the show, "The Gentleman Is a Dope." Allegro was not a success, opening on October 10, 1947, and closing after only 315 performances on July 10, 1948. But it made Kirk's name. She appeared on the original Broadway cast album released by RCA Victor Records and quickly was cast in another major Broadway musical, getting the second female lead in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and singing the coy "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "Why Can't You Behave." The show opened on December 30, 1948, and ran 1,077 performances, until July 28, 1951. Again, Kirk appeared on the original Broadway cast recording issued by Columbia Records, a chart-topping hit. Kirk did not return to Broadway for many years, but she contracted with RCA Victor Records in 1949 and scored two chart hits in 1950, "Dearie," a duet with Fran Warren, and "The Old Piano Roll Blues," a duet with Eddie Cantor. (Sepia...