Anne Francine

Anne Hollingshead Francine (August 8, 1917 – December 3, 1999) was an American actress and cabaret singer whose Broadway career spanned more than three decades, from 1954 to 1987. Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia socialite parents Albert and Emilie Francine, she was raised on the Main Line in suburban Philadelphia.

Francine's performing career began in the 1930s when she won an amateur singing contest and went on to establish herself as a cabaret singer. Her early engagements included the Coq Rouge, the Copacabana, and the Algonquin, and she performed in London and Paris during the 1940s. Among her signature songs were The Lamp is Low and Raggedy Ann.

Her Broadway debut came in 1954 alongside Shirley Booth in By the Beautiful Sea. She later stepped into the role of Vera Charles in the 1966 Broadway production of Mame, replacing Bea Arthur opposite Angela Lansbury. Francine and Lansbury reprised their respective roles together in the 1983 revival of the same production. Her final Broadway appearance came in 1987, when she played Mrs. Harcourt in the Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes, starring Patti LuPone. Her Broadway credits also included You Can't Take It With You and The Great Sebastians.

Beyond Broadway, Francine portrayed the villain Flora Simpson Reilly in the American television series Harper Valley PTA and starred as the Evil Queen in a 1979 musical adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her film work included Federico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Stand Up and Be Counted (1972), Savages (1972), and Crocodile Dundee (1986).

Later in life, Francine taught cabaret singers at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, continuing to do so even after losing her ability to speak following a stroke in 1992. She died on December 3, 1999, in a Connecticut hospital after suffering a stroke and was interred in the Michael Ehret mausoleum on Millionaire's Row at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.