Segal, Vivienne (Sonia)

(b Philadelphia, 19 Apr 1897; d Beverly Hills, CA, 29 Dec 1992). American singer and actress. She studied music and drama at Philadelphia's Sisters of Mercy Academy and in 1914 she appeared as Carmen and Siébel (Gounod's Faust) in productions of the Philadelphia Operatic Society. In 1915 she was asked to take over the ingénue lead in Eysler and Romberg's The Blue Paradise when the singer originally booked proved unsuitable; it was rumoured that her father, a wealthy doctor and arts patron, had agreed to finance the show in order to secure his daughter's Broadway début.

Segal continued to play similar leads in Broadway operettas such as Friml's The Little Whopper (1919), Kálmán's The Yankee Princess (1922), Romberg's The Desert Song (1926) and Friml's The Three Musketeers (1928). She would have introduced the song Bill in Kern's Oh, Lady! Lady! (1918) had it not been dropped during tryouts. It was not until 1938, however, that her latent comedic talents were utilized, when Rodgers and Hart gave her a character role in I Married an Angel. The worldly Countess Palaffi was kin to her next role as Vera Simpson in Pal Joey, Rodgers and Hart's 1940 story of a young nightclub entertainer kept by an older, jaded socialite. Segal's knowing, yet vulnerable performances of the songs Bewitched, Take him and What is a man? were repeated for the successful 1952 revival, which netted her that year's New York Drama Critics Award; she had also appeared in the 1943 revival of Rodgers and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee, in which the role of Morgan Le Fay had been expanded for her with Hart's murderous catalogue song, To Keep My Love Alive. Segal also appeared in a handful of musical films, most notably the 1934 version of Kern's The Cat and the Fiddle. Her last public appearances were on Alfred Hitchcock's CBS televison series in 1960 and 1961.

Although Segal's few recordings were made during the last decade of her career, they reveal a rich, fruity mezzo-soprano; only the somewhat unsteady vibrato gives away her years. Her operatic training produced a fine command of legato and clean transitions between registers, and her wide range included a rather startling f in To Keep My Love Alive. Her phrasing was extremely flexible and varied, although it never stretched over the bar line in the manner of her jazz-influenced colleagues.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. Hewitt: Vivienne Segal’, Notable Women in the American Theatre: a Biographical Dictionary, ed. A.M. Robinson, V.M. Roberts and M.S. Barranger (New York, 1989)

W. Grimes: Obituary, New York Times (30 Dec 1992)

HOWARD GOLDSTEIN