Anne Francine was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress and cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

 singer. She is well-known for her role as villain Flora Simpson Reilly in the American television series Harper Valley PTA

Harper Valley PTA (TV series)

Harper Valley PTA is an early 1980s American television sitcom based on the 1978 film Harper Valley PTA, which was itself based on the 1968 song recorded by country singer Jeannie C. Riley, written by Tom T...

.

Biography

Francine began performing as a cabaret singer in the 1930s at the Coq Rouge. Other notable engagements included the Copacabana

Copacabana (nightclub)

The Copacabana is a famous New York City nightclub. Many entertainers, among them Danny Thomas, Pat Cooper and the comedy team of Martin and Lewis, made their debuts at the Copacabana. The 1978 Barry Manilow song "Copacabana" is named after, and is about the nightclub. Part of the 2003 Yerba...

 and the Algonquin

Algonquin Hotel

The Algonquin Hotel is a historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan . The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark....

. She sang abroad in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in the 1940s.

She made her Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut in 1954 with Shirley Booth

Shirley Booth

Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...

 in By the Beautiful Sea

By the Beautiful Sea

By the Beautiful Sea is a musical with a book by Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and music by Arthur Schwartz. Like Schwartz’ previous musical, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, also starring Shirley Booth, the musical is set in Brooklyn just after the turn of the century...

. She stepped in for Bea Arthur as Vera Charles in the 1966 Broadway production of Mame, starring Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury

Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

. She and Lansbury reprised their characters in the 1983 revival. Francine last appeared on Broadway in 1987 as Mrs. Harcourt in the Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes

Anything Goes

Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...

, starring Patti LuPone

Patti LuPone

Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

.

In 1979, she starred as the Queen in the musical adaption

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (musical)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a musical with music by Frank Churchill and Jay Blackton, lyrics by Larry Morey and Joe Cook, book by Joe Cook, based on the 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs....

 of the 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...

.

Her film work included Savages, Crocodile Dundee

Crocodile Dundee

"Crocodile" Dundee is a 1986 Australian comedy film set in the Australian Outback and in New York City. It stars Paul Hogan as the weathered Mick Dundee and Linda Kozlowski as Sue Charlton....

and Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits

Juliet of the Spirits

Juliet of the Spirits is a 1965 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini that uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape"...

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