Mimi Hines

Mimi Hines (born July 17, 1933) is a Canadian-born singer and comedian best known for her appearances on The Tonight Show and her work on Broadway. She succeeded Barbra Streisand in the original production of Funny Girl.

Life and career

Hines was born in Vancouver, Canada, and resides in the United States.^[1]

Hines worked for a time in Anchorage, Alaska, where she met her partner Phil Ford,^[2] while they were working at different night clubs. On August 28, 1958, she and Ford appeared on The Tonight Show for the first time. Hines sang "Till There Was You".^[3]

In 1966, Hines succeeded Barbra Streisand on Broadway in Funny Girl, performing the role for eighteen months, after which Hines starred in touring companies of I Do! I Do! and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, as well as productions of Anything Goes, Never Too Late, The Pajama Game, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, No, No, Nanette and Sugar.

Hines played at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City. She appeared with the Los Angeles Pops Orchestra and starred in national tours of Sugar Babies and Nite Club Confidential and on a recorded salute to Johnny Mercer called Mostly Mercer.

She toured the world for a year in the title role of Hello, Dolly! and starred in productions of A Majority Of One and Can Can in Florida and in revues featuring the songs of Alan and Marilyn Bergman titled How Do You Keep the Music Playing? in Los Angeles, California, as well as the songs of Rodgers and Hart titled This Funny World at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the songs of Jerry Herman at the Schoenberg Theatre in Los Angeles, California.^[3]

Hines appeared as Mrs. Latimer on the television program Frasier and returned to Broadway in 1994 for the Tommy Tune production of Grease, in which she appeared as Miss Lynch.^[3]

She also co-starred in the off-Broadway revival of Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70, with Jane Powell, Charlotte Rae and Helen Gallagher, and was a guest in the final week of The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She performed for L.A.'s reprise, as Letitia Primrose in On The Twentieth Century and in 2005 as Berthe in Pippin.^[4]

She co-starred in 2002 as Sister Mary Amnesia in the National Tour of the 20th Anniversary production of Nunsense, along with Kaye Ballard, Georgia Engel, Lee Meriwether and Darlene Love,^[5] and starred in And Then She Wrote at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert.

In 2007, Hines starred in the City Center Encores! production of Follies.^[6]

References