Juliet Prowse

Juliet Anne Prowse was born on 25 September 1936 in Bombay, then part of British India, to an English father and a South African mother, Phyllis Donne. Following her father's death when she was three years old, her mother returned with her to South Africa, where Prowse began studying dance at the age of four. Her career as a dancer and actress spanned four decades and encompassed stage, television, and film work.

In her early twenties, Prowse was performing at a club in Paris when a talent agent discovered her and arranged for her to be cast in the Walter Lang film Can-Can (1960), in which she played the role of Claudine alongside Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, and Shirley MacLaine. She had previously passed up opportunities to travel to Hollywood due to existing contractual obligations, but ultimately left a show in Spain to take the role. During production in 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the Los Angeles set and, after watching Prowse perform the can-can, publicly declared the dance immoral. The resulting international attention significantly advanced her profile in the United States. Time magazine, while unenthusiastic about the film overall, singled Prowse out as its best element.

Her next major film role came in G.I. Blues (1960), in which she co-starred with Elvis Presley, playing the character Lili. The film drew on Presley's recent Army service experiences. Prowse also made a brief cameo appearance in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer documentary Elvis: That's the Way It Is (1970), appearing as an audience member at Presley's opening night concert at the International Hotel in Las Vegas on 10 August 1970. She appeared on the December 1959 Frank Sinatra Show alongside guests including Ella Fitzgerald, Peter Lawford, Hermione Gingold, and Nelson Riddle and his orchestra. Additional film credits include The Fiercest Heart (1961) and Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965), the latter featuring Sal Mineo and Elaine Stritch.

During the 1965–1966 television season, Prowse starred in the NBC sitcom Mona McCluskey, produced by George Burns, in which she played Mona Carroll McCluskey, one half of a couple who chose to live on her husband's military salary rather than her own more substantial earnings as an actress. She was also a guest in the first season of The Muppet Show and hosted the Championship Ballroom Dance Competition on PBS throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s. In 1987, Prowse was attacked on two separate occasions by the same eighty-pound leopard, first while filming a segment for Circus of the Stars and again during rehearsals for a promotional appearance on The Tonight Show, the second incident requiring more than twenty stitches to reattach her ear.

Prowse's Broadway career extended from 1962 to 1990. She starred in Mame and also appeared in Eddie Fisher at the Winter Garden. Beyond Broadway, she headlined Las Vegas productions and won Entertainer of the Year for her run in Sweet Charity there. She also appeared in a series of television commercials for advertisers including L'eggs hosiery and Mannington Flooring.

Sinatra and Prowse announced their engagement in 1962, a relationship that ended after six weeks. She told columnist Hedda Hopper at the time that Sinatra's expectation that she give up her career was a central obstacle. Prowse married dancer and choreographer Eddie Frazier in 1969; the couple separated after eight months and subsequently divorced. She later married actor John McCook in 1972, and the two had a son, Seth. That marriage ended in divorce in 1979.

In 1994, Prowse was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She went into remission in 1995 and was well enough to tour with Mickey Rooney in Sugar Babies, but the cancer returned. Prowse died on 14 September 1996, eleven days before her sixtieth birthday.