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Ellen Hanley (May 15, 1926 – February 12, 2007) was a musical theater performer best known for playing Fiorello H. LaGuardia's first wife in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello!. She was related to the British writers James and Gerald Hanley, and the playwright, novelist, and scriptwriter William Hanley was her brother.

Ellen Hanley
Born	(1926-05-15)May 15, 1926 Lorain, Ohio
Died	February 12, 2007(2007-02-12) (aged 80) Norwalk, Connecticut
Spouse	Ronny Graham (1951-1963)

Biography

Ellen Hanley was born in Lorain, Ohio, one of three children of William Gerald and Anne Rodgers Hanley.[1] William Hanley, Sr. was born in Liverpool, England in 1899,[2] of Irish Catholic immigrants. He was a seaman prior to settling in the US, and then worked as a housepainter.[3]

In 1951, Hanley married Ronny Graham, a fellow actor. They adopted two children, Nora and Julian. The couple divorced in 1963.[4]

Ellen Hanley made her Broadway debut in Annie Get Your Gun in 1946 playing the part of Mary. The following year she appeared in Barefoot Boy With Cheek and won a Theater World award for her performance as Clothilde Pfefferkorn.[4] in the late 1940s and 1950s she "toured extensively in summer-stock shows" and also during the 1950s performed in Julius Monk's revues.[5] In 1952 she had a part in the musical revue Two's Company, introducing the song "Roundabout". In 1959 she took over the leading role in First Impressions from Polly Bergen, playing Elizabeth Bennett in a musical based on Pride and Prejudice. She is best-known for playing Thea, Fiorello LaGuardia's first wife, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning in Fiorello!, the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick musical hit which ran for nearly 800 performances, from late 1959.[4] She acted, in 1963, in a successful off-Broadway revival of The Boys From Syracuse, a Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors.[6]

Hanley died on February 12, 2007, aged 80, in Norwalk, Connecticut, of a stroke after a long battle with cancer.[6]

Appearances

• Annie Get Your Gun (1946-1949) as Mary
• Barefoot Boy with Cheek (1947) as Clothilde Pfefferkorn
• Two's Company (1952–1953)
• First Impressions (1959) as Elizabeth Bennett
• Fiorello! (1959–1961) as Thea
• The Boys from Syracuse (1963)
• The Burns and Allen Show: Episode 3

Awards

• Theatre World Award (1947) for Clothilde Pfefferkorn in Barefoot Boy With Cheek.[7]

Notes

References

• Ellen Hanley, 80, Actress in Musicals, Dies, New York Times, February 14, 2007.
• Broadway performer Ellen Hanley dies, USA Today, February 12, 2007.

External links

• Ellen Hanley at the Internet Broadway Database

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