Beth Lydy

Beth Lydy (c. 1896 – February 6, 1979), who also performed under the name Lyda Betti, was an American actress, operetta singer, writer, educator, and theatrical producer. She was the wife of violinist and broadcaster Eddy Brown.

Lydy was born in Indiana and raised in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, where her father, John W. Lydy, worked as a government teacher on a Sioux reservation. She and her sister Ruth received their schooling in Frankfort, Indiana, and in Chicago.

Her Broadway career spanned from 1915 to 1918 and encompassed five productions. Among her credited roles, she played Hilma in the musical The Girl from Brazil (1916), took on the part of Marlene in Her Soldier Boy (1916–1917), a wartime romance, and performed the title role in The Rainbow Girl (1918). Her additional Broadway credits included the musical Step This Way and Alone at Last. During World War I, Lydy also participated in a vaudeville show in Greenwich, Connecticut, organized by Stage Women's War Relief. In 1916, she contributed a recipe for "Deviled Crabs" to a celebrity cookbook that raised funds for the Red Cross.

In the 1930s, Lydy wrote radio scripts for WOR, the New York radio station where her husband served as musical director. She and Brown also produced summer musical programming in Connecticut during the interwar period. Following World War II, the couple founded the Accademia Internazionale di Bel Canto in Bordighera, Italy. In 1956, they accepted a joint appointment at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, serving as artistic coordinators and master teachers.

Lydy married Eddy Brown in 1926 in Riverside, California, becoming his second wife. Brown died in 1974, leaving Lydy widowed. She died on February 6, 1979, in Peru, Indiana, at approximately 83 years of age.