Nanette Fabray

Nanette Fabray

Photofest

Nanette Fabray

Performer
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Nanette Fabray

Performer

October 27, 1920

San Diego, California

February 22, 2018

Nanette Fabray was an American actress, singer and dancer.

She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical theatre actress in the 1940s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life.

In the mid-1940s, Fabray worked regularly for NBC on a variety of programs in the Los Angeles area. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she made her first high-profile national television appearances performing on a number of variety programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show, Texaco Star Theatre, and The Arthur Murray Party.

In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards.

Fabray made 13 guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show. She performed on multiple episodes of The Dean Martin Show, The Hollywood Palace, Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall and The Andy Williams Show. She was a panelist on 230 episodes of the long-running game show The Hollywood Squares, as well as a mystery guest on What's My Line?

She appeared in guest-starring acting roles on Burke's Law, Love, American Style, Maude, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote, among many others.

Fabray appeared as the mother of the main character on several television series such as One Day at a Time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Coach, where she played mother to the character played by her real-life niece, Shelley Fabares.

Fabray died February 22, 2018, in Palos Verdes, California. She was 97.

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