Juanita Hall Biography

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Juanita Hall (November 6, 1901-February 28, 1968, Bay Shore, New York) She is best known today for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific and Flower Drum Song, in which she portrayed women of color other than her own.

Inspired as a child by blues legend Bessie Smith, she recorded only one album of blues in her lifetime. While in her teens she married a young actor named Clement Hall. He died in the 1920s. They had no children and she never remarried.

Hall received classical training at Juilliard. In the early 1930s she was a special soloist and assistant director for the Hall Johnson Choir.

A leading black Broadway performer in her heyday, she was personally chosen by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to perform the roles she played in the musicals South Pacific and Flower Drum Song, as a Pacific Islander and a Chinese-American, respectively. In 1950 She became the first black American to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Bloody Mary in South Pacific.

In 1958 she reprised Bloody Mary in the film version of South Pacific', for which her singing part was dubbed, at Richard Rodgers's request, by Muriel Smith (who had played the role in the London production.[1])

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