Lucy Monroe

Lucy Monroe (October 23, 1906 – October 13, 1987) was an American operatic soprano, dancer, and Broadway performer born in Manhattan, New York. The only child of actress Anna Laughlin and gem merchant Dwight Monroe, she grew up in a family with deep theatrical roots: her father had met her mother when Laughlin performed the role of Dorothy Gale in the Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. On her father's side, Monroe was a descendant of President James Monroe. She completed her education at the Horace Mann School, where she participated in the glee club, and later studied voice with Estelle Liebling, who also taught Beverly Sills.

Monroe launched her professional life in 1925, the same year her father died, after which her mother actively supported her musical ambitions. She entered the entertainment world as a dancer and backup singer with the Ziegfeld Follies and went on to appear in multiple Broadway productions between 1925 and 1934, including The O'Flynn, Polly, Help Yourself, The City, and the musical Sunny. In the 1930s she also appeared on The American Album of Familiar Music on radio.

Monroe's association with "The Star-Spangled Banner" began in 1937, when NBC arranged for her to perform at the American Legion's national convention, marking her first professional rendition of the anthem. The following January she sang it at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday ball at the Waldorf Astoria. She subsequently became the official soloist for both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and also performed at the Metropolitan Opera and with the New York Philharmonic. Her most sustained early showcase came at the 1939 New York World's Fair, where she starred in The American Jubilee; each of the production's 650 performances concluded with Monroe singing the national anthem, a run that generated her enduring nicknames "The Star-Spangled Soprano" and "The Star-Spangled Banner Girl." By 1942 her total performances of the anthem were estimated at 1,500, a figure she herself placed above 5,000 by the time of a 1950s interview with Bennett Cerf.

In March 1941 Monroe performed the anthem with the National Symphony Orchestra at Constitution Hall to mark the tenth anniversary of its designation as the official national anthem. RCA Victor appointed her its director of patriotic music and sent her on a coast-to-coast promotional tour for patriotic and folk music. During World War II she traveled to Army camps on USO tours, sang at war bond rallies, and in 1942 led a sing-along of the anthem with 40,000 people gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She visited Fort McHenry in September 1944 for the 130th anniversary of the song. Monroe continued her service organization work after the war, traveling to Europe, North Africa, and Korea in 1953 on United Service Organizations tours.

Her connection to American sporting life was equally prominent. From 1945 through 1960 she sang the national anthem for Opening Day at Yankee Stadium each year and performed it at World Series games held at that venue during the same period. In 1949 she sang at the unveiling of a monument to Babe Ruth in Monument Park, and the family of former Yankees president Ed Barrow invited her to perform "Abide with Me" at his funeral in 1953. On February 23, 1960, she sang the anthem at the ceremony preceding the demolition of Ebbets Field. Monroe also performed the anthem at the second inauguration of President Harry S. Truman in 1949, and in 1958 she testified before the House Judiciary Committee, which was evaluating 171 versions of the anthem held at the Library of Congress in order to select an official text.

In August 1961 Monroe married Harold Weinberg, an attorney; they remained married until his death in 1977. Monroe died in Manhattan from cancer on October 13, 1987, ten days before what would have been her eighty-first birthday.