Lovette George

Lovette Carol George (December 9, 1961 – September 6, 2006) was an American actress and singer born in Yonkers, New York, who built a career centered primarily in musical theatre, with Broadway appearances spanning from 1986 to 1999. She was the daughter of Richard George and Carol Joy George, and had two sisters, Richelle and Carina Marie. Her mother, a classical soprano trained at the Juilliard School, performed at New York City Center in productions of Carmen Jones (1956) and Porgy and Bess (1964), and gave a recital at Alice Tully Hall in 1981. George credited her mother's performing career as a partial inspiration for her own.

George graduated from Lincoln High School in Yonkers in 1979 and subsequently trained as an actress at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where she earned a bachelor's degree in theatre. During her final semester she starred in the university's Spring 1983 production of Loften Mitchell's Tell Pharaoh. Her professional debut came a year earlier, in 1982, while she was still a student, when she appeared in the musical revue Ain't Misbehavin' at the Cider Mill Playhouse, a production directed by Trudy Cobb Dennard featuring the music of Fats Waller. She returned to Cider Mill the following year as Aldonza in Man of La Mancha (1983). Additional early regional credits included the role of Anita in West Side Story with the Actors Conservatory Theatre (1983) and Velma Kelly in a Spotlight Productions staging of Chicago at dinner theatre venues in New Jersey and New York state in 1984.

George made her Broadway debut in Maurice Hines's musical revue Uptown...It's Hot!, which had its premiere at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia on December 18, 1985, before transferring to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway the following month in 1986. In the autumn of that year she played Ronnette in Syracuse Stage's production of Little Shop of Horrors, a role she repeated at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1987. Also in 1987, she portrayed Deena in Dreamgirls at An Evening Dinner Theater in Elmsford, New York. The New York Times described her in the role as "a spitfire, making up in theatrical urgency what she lacks in plausible glamour," while the Tarrytown Daily News wrote that she gave "Deena the kittenish appeal of Diana Ross and makes an astonishing transformation from sweet schoolgirl to practical professional to tough-minded star."

In 1989 and 1990, George performed the role of Pearl in the German cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express at the Starlight Express Theater in Bochum, a venue specifically constructed for that production, which had premiered in 1988. She recorded the part of Pearl for the 1989 German cast album of the musical. The Bochum production has continued running and, as of 2025, marks 37 years of continuous performances.

Throughout the early 1990s George remained active in regional theatre. In 1991 she appeared in the Pennsylvania Stage Company's production of Ain't Misbehavin', directed by Mercedes Ellington, the daughter of Duke Ellington. In 1992 she played Inez in the Off-Broadway musical Eating Raoul at the Union Square Theatre. She returned to Dreamgirls in 1993, this time in the role of Lorrell, at the North Carolina Theatre, and that same year starred in the Kander and Ebb musical revue And the World Goes 'Round at the Studio Arena Theater.

George's second Broadway credit came in 1994, when she joined the Lincoln Center production of Carousel in the roles of Penny Sinclair and one of the Snow children. She also served as understudy for the role of Carrie in that production, performing the part when Audra McDonald was absent. She is featured on the cast album of this production. In September 1996 she portrayed Cleo in The Most Happy Fella at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, for the opening of that theatre's 30th season, and continued with the production when it traveled to the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park the following month.

In 1997 George originated the role of Ruby in Rusty Magee's musical The Green Heart, which premiered Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. That same year she played Yum Yum in the Hot Mikado, a revised version of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 comic opera The Mikado, at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. In 1998 she portrayed Glory Dupree in the premiere of Keb' Mo' and Keith Glover's musical Thunder Knocking at the Door at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and served as Kristin Chenoweth's understudy for the role of Nancy D/The Waitress in James Lapine's Off-Broadway musical A New Brain.

George returned to Broadway for the third time in 1999, playing Celeste in Michael John LaChiusa's Marie Christine, and is featured on that production's cast album. Also in 1999, she participated in the developmental workshop of the musical Seussical during its period of development in Toronto. In 2002 she starred as Trudy McCloy in the United States premiere of Denis King's A Saint She Ain't at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, a production in which she also performed an impersonation of Betty Garrett.

From 2003 to 2005, George starred in the York Theatre's Off-Broadway production of The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!), a revue in which her character, June, moved through several name variations — June, Jeune, Junie Faye, Junita, and Juny — to reflect the show's parody of multiple musical theatre styles, including those associated with Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Jerry Herman, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. For this performance she received a nomination for the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. She continued with the production during its later run at Dodger Stages in 2005 and is heard on the show's cast album.

In addition to her stage work, George appeared in minor roles in the films Broadway Damage (1997) and Center Stage (2000), and made guest appearances on the television programs Another World, Sex and the City, and Hope & Faith. She died of ovarian cancer on September 6, 2006, at the age of 44.