Shannon Bolin

Ione Shannon Bolin was an American actress and singer born on January 1, 1917, in Spencer, South Dakota. Her father, Harry Bolin, was a hotel owner who also raised horses during the Depression; he gave her the name Ione because, as Bolin later explained in an interview, she was born on January first, or "1-1," which he interpreted as "1-one." Her mother was Gracie Elsie Bolin. Bolin went on to a Broadway career spanning from 1954 to 1965, and a March 1941 article in The Mason City Globe-Gazette described her as "The Lady with the Dark Blue Voice."

At age twenty, Bolin left South Dakota for the East Coast to pursue singing professionally. She found early work at CBS Radio in Washington, D.C., where she became the host of her own musical program during World War II. In March 1944 she performed at New York's Stage Door Canteen, and the following month she appeared at the Brooklyn Museum on an all-Russian program with the Chamber Music Guild of Washington, an organization with which she had been associated during her time in that city. Also in 1944, she auditioned for New York's New Opera Company and secured a place in its ensemble. By 1945 her voice had been heard over New York's WHN radio station. Among her earlier stage credits was Helen Goes to Troy, for which she performed under the pseudonym Anne Bolin.

Bolin's Broadway career encompassed both musicals and plays. She originated the role of Meg Boyd in the 1955–57 Broadway production of Damn Yankees and reprised the role in the 1958 film adaptation. Her other Broadway credits include The Golden Apple, in which she played Mrs. Juniper; the play Only in America, in which she portrayed Kate Golden; The Student Gypsy, where she appeared as Zampa Allescu; and Xmas in Las Vegas, in which she played Eleanor Wellspot. She also worked with Marc Blitzstein on his opera Regina, based on The Little Foxes, performing as the alternate lead when the work debuted on Broadway.

Her television work included an appearance on the NBC Opera Theatre production of Suor Angelica, in which she played the contralto role of the Princess in a nationwide telecast on December 5, 1954. She also appeared on a Jackie Gleason special titled "The Christmas List," playing Gleason's wife. On radio in New York City, Bolin performed for the Theatre Guild of the Air production of Allegro and sang Brahms lieder on WQXR for the Stromberg-Carlson series. In the early 1940s she had been a regular singer on the CBS program Your Town and Ours. Beyond Damn Yankees, her film appearances included If Ever I See You Again in 1978 and the low-budget horror film The Children in 1980.

In 1955, Bolin recorded an album for Vanguard Records consisting of seldom-heard songs by prominent composers. She and her husband searched through thousands of obscure tunes and selected twelve for the record, which they titled Rare Wine. The composers and lyricists represented on the album included Vernon Duke, Alec Wilder, Noël Coward, Ira and George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Ogden Nash, Frank Loesser, Johann Strauss, Edward Eager, Bart Howard, and John LaTouche.

Bolin married Milton Kaye, a New York pianist, composer, and arranger, in 1946. Kaye was born in 1909 and died in 2006. In 2002, the couple appeared together in a television commercial for De Beers diamonds. Bolin died on March 25, 2016, at the age of ninety-nine.