Tammy Lee Grimes (January 30, 1934 – October 30, 2016) was a vetran American actress and singer with a long list of credits in theatre, film, and television. For purposes of musical and recording work, her primary efforts were appearances on a series of cast albums, notably The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which preserves her Tony Award-winning performance, and many children's and audio book recordings.
Often thought to be British, Grimes was in fact an American who owed her accent to her birth into a prominent New England family, though the unique husky timbre of her voice was her own. Her father managed a country club, and she was a debutante who came out into Boston society at age 17. She wanted to become an actress, however, and studied drama at Stephens College in Missouri, then went to New York, where she continued her training at the Neighbourhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.
The Littlest Revue was still running when she appeared in the television musical Holiday on NBC on June 9, 1956. That August, she married Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.
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Their daughter, Amanda Plummer, was born March 23, 1957. Like both of her parents, she went on to become a Tony Award-winning performer. Grimes divorced Christopher Plummer in April 1960. She was later married to actor Jeremy Slade and to musician Richard Bell.
Grimes was part of The Amazing Adele, a Broadway-bound musical that closed out of town in December 1956. She returned to television in other original musicals. Noël Coward personally cast her in his play Look After Lulu (1959), which marked her Broadway debut in a role she originated. It ran only five weeks, but she won a Theatre World award for her performance.
She continued to appear on television up to the end of the decade, but her greatest success came with her casting in the title role of Meredith Willson's follow-up to his Broadway hit The Music Man, The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960).
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The show ran 532 performances, and Grimes won the Tony Award for supporting or featured actress in a musical. The Unsinkable Molly Brown was recorded by Capitol Records for a cast album that reached the Top Ten and remained in the charts almost a year.
The recognition Grimes achieved with The Unsinkable Molly Brown translated into more Broadway stage work and guest appearances on TV series throughout the early to mid 1960’s. While on the West Coast she appeared in her first motion picture, Three Bites of the Apple, which opened in May 1967, and in a 1967 Los Angeles stage production of the revue The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter.
Then she returned to New York and to Broadway in the play The Only Game in Town (1968). The following year, she appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's play Private Lives that won her a second Tony Award for actress in a drama, making her one of the few performers to win Tonys in both musical and dramatic categories.By 1970, Grimes, in her mid-thirties, was established as a versatile actress, perhaps most at home on-stage, but also a popular choice for character parts on television and in films. During the '70s, she returned to Broadway for revues and plays.Her notable feature films included Play It as It Lays (1972), Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978), and The Runner Stumbles (1979).
She worked less frequently in the '90s, though she still appeared in several feature films but her distinctive voice had meanwhile brought her a whole new career recording audio books in the late '80s and '90s, especially those for children and young adults.
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Tammy Grimes died on October 30, 2016, in Englewood, New Jersey, aged 82 from undisclosed causes. (Mainly edited from AllMusic)
Tammy Grimes appears on "The Hollywood Palace" in 1966, performing "Feeling Good" from the Broadway musical "The Roar of the Greasepaint---The Smell of the Crowd" by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
Tammy Grimes appears on "The Hollywood Palace" in 1966, performing "Feeling Good" from the Broadway musical "The Roar of the Greasepaint---The Smell of the Crowd" by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.