Broadway star Mimi Hines has died. According to Broadway World, the actress, who guest starred on the original Frasier, died at her home in Las Vegas on Monday of natural causes at 91. She met her future partner and husband Phil Ford in Anchorage, Alaska and the duo were invited to appear on The Tonight Show in August 1958. After Hines sang “Till There Was You,” she and Ford ended up frequently appearing on The Tonight Show and various other talk and variety shows.
They would also go on to headline nightclubs and showrooms across the country, and in 1964, they filmed a pilot episode for a potential sitcom called Mimi, which would have starred them as owners of a resort hotel, but it was never picked up to series. Hines replaced Barbra Streisand on Broadway in Funny Girl in 1966 for 18 months and later starred in touring companies of I Do! I Do! and The Prisoner of Second Avenue. She also appeared in productions of Anything Goes, Never Too Late, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Sugar, and more.
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Around that time, Hines recorded multiple albums, including Mimi Hines Sings and Mimi Hines is a Happening via Decca Records. She also appeared in several small roles between 1964 and 1999, including on Summer Playhouse, Saturday Night in Apple Valley, Love, American Style, Fake-Out, and she appeared as Mrs. Latimer in a Season 6 episode of Frasier in 1999. That role was Hines’ final on-screen role, but she continued to dominate Broadway.
Mimi Hines co-starred in the off-Broadway revival of 70, Girls, 70 and performed in The Twentieth Century and Pippin. In 2002, she co-starred on the National Tour of the 20th Anniversary production of Nunsense, then five years later, starred in the City Center Encores! Production of Follies. As for variety show appearances, along with The Tonight Show, Hines was also on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Rosie O’Donnell Show, among others.
Hines and Ford tied the knot in 1954 and divorced in 1972 but still made quite an impact while working and touring together. They were recently awarded a Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Fame. A planned ceremony will serve as a celebration of Hines’ life, career, and marriage.
