Monica Boyar

Monica Boyar, born Argentina Mercedes González Morel Valerio Urea on December 20, 1920, in Mao, Dominican Republic, was a Dominican-born American nightclub singer, stage actress, and fashion designer. She is also identified in some sources as having been born in Santiago de los Caballeros. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1929, settling in Manhattan, where she grew up using the name Argentina Morel. She attended Manhattanville Junior High School #43 and Textile High School in Manhattan, and became a United States citizen in 1947 after residing in the country from approximately the age of six or eight, depending on the source.

Boyar began singing in the choral group at the Metropolitan Opera House at the age of twelve. Her voice started as a soprano before she transitioned to a tenor and, in later years, a contralto. She became known in the 1940s and 1950s for performing calypso and Afro-Cuban style songs, and she introduced merengue dance to the United States during the 1939 New York World's Fair, where she also taught the dance to Arthur Murray. By 1955, merengue had become the fastest growing dance in the country. When she first brought calypso music to American audiences, the genre was widely considered uncommercial, but by 1954 calypso songs ranked among the bestsellers. She introduced the song That's Why A Woman Loves A Heel in October 1945.

During World War II, Boyar participated in charity fundraising shows, including productions directed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1948, she had appeared on every overseas radio network. Her nightclub engagements included performances at Ciro's in Mexico City and the Hotel Nacional in Havana, as well as a December 1955 appearance at the Viennese Lantern at 242 East 79th Street in Yorkville, Manhattan. That engagement prompted a lawsuit from a tenant living above the club, who claimed that Boyar's bongo drummer prevented him from sleeping. In 1960, gossip columnist Walter Winchell described her as the finest Latin talent in the entertainment field.

Boyar's Broadway career spanned from 1948 to 1961. She appeared in Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke in 1948, playing the character Rosa Gonzalez. In 1961, she starred as Emmaloa, a Hawaiian wife, in 13 Daughters, a short-lived Broadway musical by Eaton Magoon Jr. Beyond the stage, she appeared in the three-minute short film Princess Papaya in 1945, played a singer in a 1952 episode of the television series Mister Peepers, and received a screen test from Universal Pictures in 1961.

As a fashion designer, Boyar created original garments for stage and motion picture stars, as well as expensive handbags. She maintained a collection of over two hundred gowns in her New York City apartment for use at performances.

Her first husband, Federico Horacio Vásquez Henríquez, was captured and executed in 1949 following his participation in a plot against Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, after landing at Luperón, Puerto Plata. Her second marriage was to actor Leslie Nielsen, which lasted from 1950 to 1956. They separated in August 1955, and Nielsen obtained a default divorce in June 1956, agreeing to pay $19,000 in lieu of alimony in monthly installments of $500. In March 1958, Boyar married comedian Lee Tully, divorcing him in Mexico three months later. She had no children.

Boyar retired to Las Vegas, Nevada, where she died on October 2, 2013, from complications of a stroke at the age of 92.