Connie Kunkle

Connie Leigh Kunkle (April 4, 1958 – December 14, 2016) was an American stage performer and television personality whose career spanned four decades in musical theater, concert performance, and broadcast hosting. She grew up in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Ruth Miller Kunkle and Thomas L. Kunkle, and cultivated her musical abilities through public school choirs, orchestras, and theatrical productions. After earning a Bachelor of Science in communications from Ohio University, Kunkle began her professional life at Walt Disney World as a member of the Kids of the Kingdom. She later became an original cast member of Top of the World, also at Disney World.

Kunkle's stage career brought her to Broadway in 1987, where she appeared in both Me and My Girl and Les Misérables. In Me and My Girl she performed opposite Tim Curry, and in Les Misérables she took on the role of Fantine. Beyond Broadway, her theatrical work included touring with the original cast of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and starring opposite Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Her concert engagements included performances with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and the Queen's Royal Marine Band in England.

In addition to her stage work, Kunkle built a substantial television career that encompassed infomercial hosting and, beginning in 2004, an eleven-year tenure as an on-air host for ShopNBC, later known as Evine Live and ShopHQ. In December 2010 she released a Christmas album titled Connie Kunkle Christmas.

Kunkle was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2015. In the final months of her life she resided in a memory care facility in College Station, Texas, near her sister Judy Kunkle King Skelton. She died in her sleep on December 14, 2016, from complications of the disease at the age of 58, and was laid to rest at Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando, Florida. She was survived by her sisters Judy, Patti Kunkle of Atlanta, Georgia, and Debbie Kunkle-Bramblett of Huntsville, Alabama, as well as nieces, nephews, and a close circle of friends she considered chosen family.