Gray, Dolores

▪ 2003

      American singer and actress (b. June 7, 1924, Chicago, Ill.—d. June 26, 2002, New York, N.Y.), had a rich contralto voice that gained her success in motion pictures and, especially, stage musicals. Her first, and perhaps greatest, triumph came in the London production of Annie Get Your Gun, which opened in 1947 and ran for nearly three years, playing to an audience that totaled more than 2.5 million. She followed that with other stage musicals and cabaret acts, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for the short-lived Broadway musical Carnival in Flanders (1953); starred in such films as Kismet (1955), It's Always Fair Weather (1955), and Designing Woman (1957); and, after several years away from show business, returned to the stage for the London productions of Gypsy (1973) and Follies (1987) and Broadway's 42nd Street (1986).

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