Nola Fairbanks

Nola Fairbanks, born Nola Jo Modine on December 10, 1924, in Santa Paula, California, was an American actress whose Broadway career spanned from 1947 to 1954. She died on February 8, 2021, in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 96. Her father, Alexander Revard Modine, worked for the Texaco Oil Company, while her mother, Zella Vonola Fairbanks Modine, took in washing during the Great Depression to fund her daughter's singing and dancing lessons. Fairbanks was the aunt of actor Matthew Modine and a descendant of Jonathan Fairbanks, whose 17th-century wood-frame house remains standing in Dedham, Massachusetts. Her maternal grandparents, Ralph Jacobus Fairbanks and Celestia Adelaide Fairbanks, were Mormon pioneers from Payson, Utah and Death Valley, California.

As a child, Fairbanks trained with the Meglin Kiddies Dance Troupe, where Shirley Temple was also a student. Her earliest professional work included a small role as a glorified extra in the 1945 Bette Davis film The Corn Is Green, followed by participation in a Lionel Barrymore production of the musical Halloween at the Hollywood Bowl. She also performed on The Standard Hour and at the Hollywood Canteen for servicemen.

Fairbanks subsequently joined the Sonja Henie Ice Show as a soloist, completing two national tours. When those tours concluded in New York, she remained with the production, which was presented as Howdy, Mr. Ice at the Center Theatre in Rockefeller Center. Her Broadway credits include Icetime of 1948, Howdy, Mr. Ice, and Howdy, Mr. Ice of 1950. Her Broadway debut in a book musical came in 1950 in the chorus of Cole Porter's Out of This World, in which she later became an understudy and eventually assumed the lead role.

Summer stock engagements during this period included Miss Liberty with Dick Haymes at the Dallas Theatre, Die Fledermaus, and Bloomer Girl in Toronto, Canada. Fairbanks subsequently joined the Broadway cast of Paint Your Wagon, taking over the role of Jennifer Rumson from Olga San Juan opposite James Barton. She then toured the production with Burl Ives playing Ben Rumson. In 1952, she starred in the inaugural musical production at the new Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York, an operetta by Johann Strauss II titled Eine Nacht in Venedig, produced by Mike Todd and featuring Enzo Stuarti and Thomas Hayward.

Following a successful appearance on The Arthur Godfrey Radio Show, Fairbanks was invited to perform on his television program as well. Her final Broadway appearance came when she was asked to replace Florence Henderson in the lead role of Fanny, co-starring Ezio Pinza.

After stepping away from performing, Fairbanks returned to the stage in 1981 in an off-Broadway production called Romance Is, which her husband produced and which closed after a few performances. Her husband had also produced a short-lived sketch comedy television series, Madhouse Brigade, in 1978 in which Fairbanks appeared. She had married James Larkin in 1954, and the couple had four children before divorcing in 1990.