A Broadway actress has died at the age of 97.
June Walker Rogers, who was also a singer, dancer, comedian and television actress, died last month, her family have announced.
She also wrote several musicals and a book about how to survive in show business. She worked with other industry icons such as Dick Van Dyke, Bert Lahr, Hal Linden, Tony Bennett and Olsen and Johnson during her career.
She died on Monday July 8 at her home in Westport, Connecticut, United States. Her cause of death has not been revealed.
Rogers began her career as a child. Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised in Queens, she found her love of dancing at the age of five. As a youngster, she went on to perform in a nightclub, appearing on bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield and, when he was known as the singer “Calypso Gene,” Louis Farrakhan.
She took part in an accelerated pilot program for gifted children in the New York school system, and was able to graduate from high school at 15. She then accepted a scholarship to Columbia University but left college to make her Broadway debut in 1944 in the comedy revue Laffing Room Only, starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson.
She then returned to Broadway 15 years later, in 1959, to work alongside Bert Lahr and Dick Van Dyke in The Girls Against the Boys.
Walker Rogers starred in Guys & Dolls with Tony Bennett and Little Me with Orson Bean and in other musicals such as Bells Are Ringing, Mame and Oklahoma.
On television, she appeared on programs hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan, who brought her to perform at the White House for Presidents Truman and Eisenhower.
She took a break from her career to start a family, but when she returned to the industry she turned her hand to writing, contributing to musicals such as All American, written with Charles Strouse and Lee Adams; The Dream on Royal Street, written with Alan Menken and her late husband, David Rogers; and 45 Minutes From Broadway, based on the work of George M. Cohan.
Her 1986 book, ‘How to Make It in Showbiz: A Survival Kit’, was read in university theatre departments across the country. The book is still available to buy on Amazon.
In later years, she returned to the stage to perform opposite George Grizzard in The Perfect Party at the Westport Country Playhouse and with family members in The Perfect Wedding.
She is survived by her daughters, Dulcy and Amanda, and her grandchildren, Lucy, Sebastian, Dashiell and Ondine. She and David Rogers, the composer, actor and Tony-nominated lyricist, were married for 50 years until his death in 2013.