Muriel Rahn

Muriel Ellen Rahn (1911–1961) was an American actress, vocalist, and one of the foremost Black concert singers of the mid-twentieth century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Willie and Elizabeth "Bessie" Rahn (née Smith), she relocated to New York City with her mother following her father's death. Her mother subsequently married Cornelius M. Battey, who served as director of photography at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and Rahn completed her secondary education at Tuskegee. She went on to attend Atlanta University before earning a degree from the Music Conservatory of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and she received additional training at Columbia University and the Juilliard School of Music.

Rahn launched her professional career in New York City in 1929. Her Broadway work spanned from 1934 to 1950 and encompassed a range of productions, including the comedy The Pirate, the musical Swingin' The Dream, and the play Come of Age, written and staged by Clemence Dane with music by Richard Addinsell. She is perhaps best known for her starring role in the original Broadway production of Carmen Jones. In 1950, she appeared opposite operatic bass-baritone Lawrence Tibbett in The Barrier, a musical based on Langston Hughes's play Mulatto, in which she played the role of Cora Lewis.

Beyond her Broadway career, Rahn co-founded the Rose McClendon Players alongside her husband, Dick Campbell. Her stage work also extended to off-Broadway, where she appeared in Sara Reavin's melodrama The Ivory Branch with Diana Barrymore. In 1959, she became the first Black musical director of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt, the German State Theater in Frankfurt, Germany. Rahn died on August 8, 1961, at Sydenham Hospital in New York City from lung cancer.