Anne Russell, one of the first actresses to star as composer-lyricist Jerry Herman’s musical comedy queens in both Hello, Dolly! and Mame, died Tuesday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, her friend Ted Seifman announced. She was 103.
After serving as an understudy in a City Center revival of Pal Joey in 1963, Russell made her Broadway debut in 1965 in Kander & Ebb’s Flora, the Red Menace, directed by George Abbott and starring Liza Minnelli (who was making her Broadway debut, too).
She began her Hello, Dolly! career that year when she auditioned for Gower Champion and became the standby for Mary Martin, joining the show in Cleveland. She toured for more than two years with the production, standing by for Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers as well, as it played across the country and in Tokyo, Vietnam and South Korea.
Her Mame years kicked off with a national tour in 1965, followed by summer engagements, bus & truck tours and stops in Las Vegas, playhouses and dinner theaters.
Born on March 22, 1923, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Russell began in show business singing with local bands.
