Ellen Hanley

Ellen Hanley (May 15, 1926 – February 12, 2007) was an American musical theater performer whose Broadway career spanned from 1946 to 1987. Born in Lorain, Ohio, she was one of three children of William Gerald and Anne (Rodgers) Hanley. Her father, William Hanley Sr., was born in Liverpool, England in 1899 to Irish Catholic immigrants and had worked as a seaman before settling in the United States and taking up work as a housepainter. Her brother William Hanley was a playwright, novelist, and scriptwriter, and she was also related to the British writers James and Gerald Hanley.

Hanley made her Broadway debut in 1946 in Annie Get Your Gun, in which she played the role of Mary. The following year she appeared in Barefoot Boy With Cheek, portraying Clothilde Pfefferkorn, a performance that earned her the Theatre World Award in 1947. During the late 1940s and 1950s she toured extensively in summer stock productions and performed in Julius Monk's revues. In 1952 she appeared in the musical revue Two's Company, where she introduced the song "Roundabout."

In 1959 Hanley took over the leading role of Elizabeth Bennett in First Impressions from Polly Bergen, a musical adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. That same year she originated the role of Thea, Fiorello LaGuardia's first wife, in Fiorello!, the Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick musical that won the Pulitzer Prize and ran for nearly 800 performances. In 1963 she appeared in a successful off-Broadway revival of The Boys From Syracuse, a Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical derived from Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Her Broadway work also included a production of Company.

In 1951 Hanley married fellow actor Ronny Graham. The couple adopted two children, Nora and Julian, before divorcing in 1963. Hanley died on February 12, 2007, in Norwalk, Connecticut, of a stroke following a prolonged battle with cancer. She was 80 years old.