MEET JO LOESSER: Broadway Star & wife of composer Frank Loesser
Don’t miss meeting Broadway performer, Jo Sullivan Loesser, who will be featured at the Ellen Eccles Theatre for an exclusive, one time apperance, Wednesday, July 11t at 10 a.m. This special opportunity is provided by Utah Festival Opera and is free to the public.
Jo Sullivan Loesser, soprano and widow of composer Frank Loesser, one of the top Hollywood and Broadway songwriters from the 1940s through the 1960s (Guys & Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, Heart & Soul etc), starred in The Most Happy Fella (1956) as the original Rosabella, which earned her a 1957 Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Jo Sullivan Loesser’s professional life began as an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout Show “loser,” in “Naughty Marietta.” Her first big break came when she was chosen to create the role of Polly in a concert version of “The Three penny Opera,” which, in turn, led to the classic Off-Broadway production “The Bilbao Song” (“The Bide-A-Wee in Soho”). “The Three penny Opera” eventually became an Off-Broadway landmark event running 2,611 performances. She played the leading role, Rosabella the waitress, in “The Most Happy Fella” and her performance was nominated for a Tony Award. She met and married composer Frank Loesser and eventually stopped working to raise their two daughters, Hannah and Emily. After his untimely death in 1969, she successfully managed his music publishing business, Frank Music, controlling all the music publishing, song and stage rights.
Jo Loesser returned to performing in a tribute to her late husband offering an act entirely made from the Loesser oeuvre. She produced his most famous screen musical, “Hans Christian Andersen,” at the London Palladium, and followed that with the 1980 Broadway revue, “Perfectly Frank,” in which she also starred. She toured as Sarah Brown in a revival of “Guys and Dolls,” and recreated her role of Rosabella in a tour of “The Most Happy Fella.” For two years, she developed a show devoted to Loesser and others from Broadway including Rodgers, Lerner and Loewe, Kern and Styne, calling it “I Hear Music…of Frank Loesser and Friends.” She opened the show to rave reviews in 1984. More recently, she co-starred with Kitty Carlisle and John Raitt in a salute to Frank Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Moss Hart, in a show called “Yes, There Were Giants.”
In 1989 she introduced her daughter Emily to the New York stage, co-starring with her in the show “Together Again for the First Time.” Since then, they have performed together many times and added bonus tracks to the CD of “Frank Loesser Revisited,” featuring several Loesser songs from Together Again. She recorded “Loesser By Loesser,” a compilation of both familiar and obscure Loesser tunes, performed by her and her family.