Victoria Mallory

Victoria Mallory (September 20, 1948 – August 30, 2014) was an American actress and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1971 to 2011. Born Victoria Morales, she was the daughter of Ruby Mallory and Mario Morales; her father was from the Philippines and her mother was from Virginia. Though she was a native of Richmond, Virginia, her family relocated to Columbus, Georgia during her childhood, where she graduated from Baker High School in 1966. During her school years she performed in approximately twenty musicals, including productions at local theaters, and also studied piano and dancing. She is sometimes credited under the name Vicki Morales, a variant of her birth name.

Following high school, Mallory traveled to New York to assist a former teacher with a production of Little Mary Sunshine and chose to remain in the city. She enrolled at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, where she met Kurt Peterson, who would later become her co-star. Her early New York stage work included the 1968 revival of West Side Story at Lincoln Center, where she played Maria, and the 1968 revival of Carnival! at New York City Center.

Mallory's Broadway career brought her into contact with three Stephen Sondheim productions. Her first Broadway credit came with Follies in 1971, where she played Young Heidi. The role had an unusual origin: at her audition, producer Harold Prince told her no suitable part existed, and she responded that she would accept any role in the show. Prince hired her, and during rehearsals the role of Young Heidi was created specifically for her. Choreographer Michael Bennett incorporated her into the dance numbers, and Sondheim composed "One More Kiss" as her featured number. Her most prominent Broadway role followed in 1973–74, when she originated the part of Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music. Prince cast her after hearing her read a single line of the script, and she was the first performer hired for that production. Her additional Broadway credits include Sondheim: A Musical Tribute and Camelot.

Beyond Broadway, Mallory performed extensively in regional theater, appearing with organizations including the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, the Pittsburgh CLO, the St. Louis Municipal Opera, Atlanta's Theater of the Stars, Kansas City Starlight, Dallas Summer Musicals, Utah's Pioneer Theatre Company, and the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City.

On television, Mallory was best known for portraying Leslie Brooks on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, a role she took over from Janice Lynde in 1977 and held until 1982, with a guest return in 1984. In 1991 she appeared briefly as Dr. Denise Foxworthy on Santa Barbara, and she made guest appearances on series including Everwood, Touched by an Angel, and Promised Land.

Outside of performing, Mallory developed a proficiency in tai chi and served as a photographic model for a martial arts book by Marshall Ho'o, who acknowledged her participation and described her tai chi practice in the book's text.

In 1975, Mallory married Mark Lambert, her co-star from A Little Night Music. The couple had a daughter, Ramona Mallory, who also became an actress. Ramona played Luisa in an Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks and appeared in the 2009 Broadway revival of A Little Night Music in the role of Anne Egerman, the same part her mother had originated thirty-six years earlier.

Mallory died on August 30, 2014, of pancreatic cancer, twenty days before her sixty-sixth birthday. Her mother, Ruby Morales, had died three weeks earlier on August 5, 2014, at the age of eighty-six.