Nancy McCord

Nancy McCord (died July 8, 1974, Arcadia, California) was an American soprano and actress who built a career spanning opera, musical theatre, and vaudeville across the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. A native of Long Island, New York, she studied singing with Marcella Sembrich at the Juilliard School and at Sembrich's studio in Bolton Landing, New York, on Lake George. Her repertoire centered on light opera and operetta roles, and she performed with several American opera companies, including the St. Louis Municipal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, in addition to her Broadway work.

McCord began her professional life as a radio singer in the early 1920s, appearing regularly on NBC Radio's WEAF station in New York City. Her New York opera debut came in 1929, when she sang the role of Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen at Lewisohn Stadium with Vladimir Rosing's American Opera Company and conductor Eugene Ormandy. Her first Broadway appearance followed on January 10, 1930, when she portrayed Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro for the same company at the Casino Theatre. On January 18, 1930, she returned to the Casino Theatre as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, opposite tenor Charles Kullman; that performance proved to be the final one given at the Casino Theatre before the venue was demolished the following month. She subsequently toured with the American Opera Company to Washington, D.C., reprising all three of her opera roles at Poli's Theatre. Also in 1930, she starred as Marie Madame Morrosini in Walter Kollo's operetta Three Little Girls at the Great Northern Theatre in Chicago.

In 1932 McCord appeared on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre as Mable Stork in the musical revue Chamberlain Brown's Scrap Book, produced by its namesake. That same year she was engaged for the original run of Irving Berlin's Facing the Music, though she did not ultimately perform in it; she was instead cast as Kit Baker in the 1933 Broadway revival of that production. Critic Mehler, reviewing her performance in the revival, wrote that she had a distinctive personality and questioned why she had been released from the original cast. In 1933 she also portrayed Lisa in the United States premiere of Franz Lehár's The Land of Smiles at the Boston Opera House. The following year she starred on Broadway as Queen Erna of Langenstein in the original production of Frederick Herendeen and Edward A. Horan's All the King's Horses (1934).

McCord created the role of Marie-Baroness von Schlewitz in the original Broadway production of Oscar Hammerstein II and Sigmund Romberg's May Wine in 1935. That same year she returned to the St. Louis Municipal Opera, where she had first performed during the 1931 summer season, to portray Shirley Sheridan in Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach's The Cat and the Fiddle and Princess Stephanya in the United States premiere of Robert Stolz's operetta Venus in Seide, retitled Venus in Silk for American audiences. The production toured to Pittsburgh for tryout performances ahead of a planned Broadway run, but unfavorable reviews halted those plans. Her work with the St. Louis Municipal Opera also included starring roles in Noël Coward's Bitter Sweet (1933), the Edwardian musical comedy Florodora (1933) as Dolores, and the world premiere of Harry Tierney's operetta Beau Brummell (1933), in which she created the role of Marianne. She later sang the title roles in Rudolf Friml's Rose-Marie and Friml's Katinka, both in 1939, and portrayed Heidi Mahler in the company's 1938 staging of Lost Waltz, a stage adaptation of the 1934 film Two Hearts in Waltz Time.

McCord made her Metropolitan Opera debut on May 21, 1937, singing the romantic lead Saamcheddine in Henri Rabaud's Mârouf, savetier du Caire, with Mario Chamlee in the title role. That same year she was featured in a 1937 NBC Radio broadcast on the program Sealtest's Saturday Night Party, performing works by Gilbert and Sullivan. During the early 1930s she also toured periodically in vaudeville; a 1932 Variety review described her as a "looker with a voice," and by 1934 she was a headliner on the Orpheum Circuit, appearing at venues including Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre.

Her final Broadway credit was the role of Mary Stone in the world premiere of Douglas Moore's The Devil and Daniel Webster, performed at the Martin Beck Theatre in 1939. She subsequently reprised the role in several performances at the 1939 New York World's Fair. In 1941 she starred in The Student Prince in a Shubert Organization production that opened at the Boston Opera House and toured to other Shubert-owned theatres, and that same year she portrayed the title role in Rio Rita at the Dallas Opera.

McCord retired from performance following her marriage to Edmond C. Fleming in 1942. The couple settled on Fleming's ranch in Altadena, California, and in 1954 McCord relocated to Arcadia, California, where she lived until her death on July 8, 1974.