Shannon Bolin Kaye, Original Meg in Damn Yankees, Dies at 99
(© David Gordon)
Shannon Bolin Kaye, who originated the role of Meg in Damn Yankees, died March 25 at the age of 99.
Born January 1, 1917, in Spencer, South Dakota, Bolin worked as a teacher and at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., before embarking on a career in show business. She attended Dakota Wesleyan University and the University of Maryland.
Bolin made her Broadway debut in 1944 in Helen Goes to Troy under the pseudonym Anne Bolin. Her stage credits also include The Golden Apple, Only in America, The Student Gypsy, and Xmas in Las Vegas. She helped Marc Blitzstein develop his opera Regina, based on The Little Foxes. She alternated the leading role with Jane Pickens. Along with the original stage version of Damn Yankees in 1955, Bolin repeated her work in the show's the screen adaptation in 1958.
On television, Bolin appeared in a series of commercials for the restaurant Denny's throughout the 1980s and '90s, in which she famously mispronounced the chain's name as Lenny's. She also appeared on television in the NBC Opera Theatre production of Suor Angelica and on the Jackie Gleason Show Christmas special, in which she played his wife.
Bolin married composer and arranger Milton Kaye in 1946. They recorded an album, Rare Wine, and appeared in a DeBeers commerical in 2002. They were married until his death in 2006.
