To get you in the mood for this post, take a listen to the first minute in the video below:

Oklahoma ! Oh What a Beautiful Morning and More (HD 720p)

Long before Shirley Jones played the mom in The Partridge Family, she played the lead in the film version of the musical, Oklahoma, but before Shirley Jones played, “Laurie” on screen, it was performed on Broadway by Joan Roberts. These days, it seems unfashionable to admit a fondness for Rogers and Hammerstein, or Lerner and Loewe, but true fans know that their scores were brilliant, and singing them on stage created stars almost overnight. We don’t have video from Roberts’ performance on stage, but below is the very lady speaking about performing in Oklahoma! in a 4 minute interview:

You can hear Joan Roberts sing, Out of My Dreams here

So what do big Broadway stars do during intermission of a huge Broadway hit? They “exercise” their dogs, of course. Joan Roberts was a Bulldog owner who even in full costume, gave her dog, “Goggles,” his own “intermission.” You can see the giggling Roberts exercising Goggles here. 

Roberts died of congestive heart failure in 2012 at the age of 95, one of the last living members of the musical’s original cast. Coincidentally, another original cast member, and great friend to purebred dogs (and to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show), died a month before at the same age, Celeste Holm, who played Ado Annie in the same original production of Oklahoma!, and the role for which Roberts first auditioned.  It was Hammerstein who realized that Roberts’ lyric soprano was better suited for the role of “Laurey.”

Thumbnail photo of Oklahoma cast / Department of State. Agency for International Development/filed in Wikicommons and it is now in the public domain in the United States