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Mimi Hines 1933 - 2024

Mimi Hines of Vancouver, BC Canada was born on July 17, 1933 in Vancouver, BC, and died at age 91 years old on October 21, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada United States.

Mimi Hines

Vancouver, BC Canada

July 17, 1933

Vancouver, BC, Canada

October 21, 2024

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Female

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Mimi Hines Mimi Hines (1933 - 2024)

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Mimi Hines' History: 1933 - 2024

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07/17

1933

Birthday

July 17, 1933

Birthdate

Vancouver, BC Canada

Birthplace

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Nationality & Locations

Mimi Hines, a Replacement Star in ‘Funny Girl,’ Dies at 91 She was best known as half of a comedy team with her husband, Phil Ford until her hall-filling voice earned her raves in a role made famous by Barbra Streisand. Mimi Hines and her husband, Phil Ford, left, along with the actor Johnny Desmond, after her first performance as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on Broadway in 1965. Ms. Hines replaced Barbra Streisand; Mr. Ford and Mr. Desmond were also in the cast. By Alex Williams Published Oct. 27, 2024 Updated Oct. 31, 2024 Mimi Hines, a powerful singer and live-wire comedian who etched her name in Broadway lore as the replacement for Barbra Streisand in the original production of “Funny Girl,” died on Oct. 21 at her home in Las Vegas. She was 91. Her lawyer and friend Mark Sendroff confirmed her death. A “mischievous sprite,” as The New York Times once called her, the diminutive Ms. Hines brought outsize energy to her work, whether she was dishing out one-liners in nightclubs as half of a comedy-and-song duo, Ford & Hines, with her husband, Phil Ford, or delivering showstopping numbers to packed houses on Broadway. During her peak in the 1950s and ’60s, journalists often noted her elfin quality and her distinctive facial features — cleft chin, deep dimples, and wide, toothy grin — which she was not shy about using as a comic prop. When Mike Wallace interviewed her and Mr. Ford in 1961, he informed her that a newspaper writer had recently described her as “two buck teeth and a carload of talent.” “That’s not true,” she responded. “My whole mouth is buck.” Ms. Hines and Mr. Ford got their first big break in 1958 on “The Tonight Show,” which was hosted by Jack Paar at the time. It was the first of several “Tonight” appearances they would make over the years. Her rendition of the song “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” moved Mr. Paar to tears. “It was a magic night on TV,” Ms. Hines said in a 1963 interview with The Prince Herald Daily Tribune of Saskatchewan. “They say 12 million people saw it.” They also appeared on several episodes of “The Ed Sullivan Show” and on many other variety and talk shows. A far more significant triumph loomed in 1965 when she was chosen to replace Ms. Streisand in the landmark musical “Funny Girl,” about the early days of the Broadway and radio star Fanny Brice’s career. Mr. Ford joined the cast as Fanny’s mentor, Eddie Ryan. Image A man in a dark suit gestures toward a woman in a dark dress with a white collar and cuffs. They are standing in front of a theater curtain. Mr. Ford and Ms. Hines on the ABC variety show “The Hollywood Palace” in 1964. They performed as a comedy-and-music duo for many years. She knew she had enormous shoes to fill. But Ms. Hines was unafraid to make the role her own. “I’m learning the role as if somebody just handed me the script,” she said in an interview with The Times published weeks before her debut that December. “But I suppose the shading will be different since I will project my personality.” Her star turn earned glowing reviews from many critics. Leonard Harris of The New York World-Telegram and The Sun wrote, "She moved the show along with as much drive as her predecessor did, perhaps more.” “She wailed the ballads,” he added, “belted the up-tempo tunes and put the comedy in the hip pockets of every outfit in her opulent wardrobe.” Mimi Hines was born Shirley Saborne in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 17, 1933, to Lillian Hines, a professional dancer, and Eugene Saborne. Her father split with her mother when she was an infant. Descended from a long line of performers — including her grandmother Elizabeth Hines, who once sang at the London Palladium — she took to music at an early age. By the time she was 12, she was singing in nightclubs and lied about her age. In 1952, when she was 18, she was hired for an extended run at the Silver Slipper nightclub in Anchorage, Alaska, lured by a hefty paycheck of $275 a week (more than $3,000 in today’s money). Mr. Ford, a former vaudeville comedian in his early 30s, was performing at a different venue and met her one night at a club called the Last Chance — “Sardi’s North,” as he joked in the Wallace interview — where local entertainers hung out after their sets. Ms. Hines at a benefit for the Actors Fund in Los Angeles in 2005. performed as a solo act on the club circuit, and appeared in theatrical productions into the 21st century. The Silver Slipper folded soon after they met, and Ms. Hines joined Mr. Ford’s act. They married two years later and, by the late 1950s, were touring the country and playing marquee venues like the Copacabana and the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, where the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald also performed. Their 1964 pilot for a sitcom called “Mimi,” about a couple who own a resort hotel, was not picked up. But Broadway was soon to beckon. Ms. Hines’s run in “Funny Girl” lasted 18 months, after which she joined touring companies of “I Do! I Do!,” “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” and “Sugar Babies.” With a voice that could “belt or coo in a dusky alto or shimmering soprano,” as Variety once put it, she also cut multiple albums in the 1960s. In 1967, she and Mr. Ford squared off against each other on the game show “Password.” The couple divorced in 1972 but continued to perform together at times, including an early-1990s production of “Hello, Dolly!” that toured the country with Ms. Hines in the lead role. The former spouses shared one bus, and the crew shared another. Ms. Hines continued for years as a solo act on the club circuit and appeared in numerous theatrical productions. She returned to Broadway in 1994 as the English teacher Miss Lynch in the Tommy Tune production of “Grease.” Mr. Ford died in 2005. No immediate family members survive. Despite her varied accomplishments, Ms. Hines’s role in “Funny Girl” looms most significant in her legacy. For her, it marked the realization of a longtime dream. “Phil and I have aimed for Broadway since we first heard of it,” she told The Times in 1965. “Everything else has been like a detour.”
Professional Career

Mimi Hines Publicity photo of Hines and Phil Ford Born July 17, 1933 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Died October 21, 2024 (aged 91) Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. Occupations Actress singer comedian Spouse Phil Ford (m. 1954; div. 1972) Mimi Hines (July 17, 1933 – October 21, 2024) was a Canadian actress, singer, and comedian, best known for her appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show and her work on Broadway. She succeeded Barbra Streisand in the original production of Funny Girl. Life and career Hines was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and resided in the United States. She worked for a time in Anchorage, Alaska, where she met comedian Phil Ford in 1952 while they were working at different night clubs. They married in 1954 and divorced in 1972. On August 28, 1958, she and Ford appeared on The Tonight Show for the first time. Hines sang "Till There Was You". In a later stand-up routine on The Tonight Show, she portrayed the NBC peacock. In 1959 she sang several of the numbers on the Esquivel-Ray Martin Christmas song collaboration, The Merriest of Christmas Pops (RCA Victor). In 1964, Hines and Ford filmed a pilot episode for a potential sitcom, Mimi, that would have starred the two as owners of a resort hotel, but the series was not picked up for airing. In 1966, Hines succeeded Barbra Streisand on Broadway in Funny Girl, performing the role for eighteen months, after which she starred in touring companies of I Do! I Do! and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, as well as productions of Anything Goes, Never Too Late, The Pajama Game, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, No, No, Nanette and Sugar. She played at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City. She appeared with the Los Angeles Pops Orchestra and starred in national tours of Sugar Babies and Nite Club Confidential and on a recorded salute to Johnny Mercer called Mostly Mercer. She toured the world for a year in the title role of Hello, Dolly! and starred in productions of A Majority of One and Can-Can in Florida and in revues featuring the songs of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, How Do You Keep the Music Playing? in Los Angeles, as well as the songs of Rodgers and Hart titled This Funny World at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the songs of Jerry Herman at the Schoenberg Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Hines appeared as Mrs. Latimer on the television program Frasier and returned to Broadway in 1994 for the Tommy Tune production of Grease, in which she appeared as Miss Lynch. She also co-starred in the off-Broadway revival of Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70, with Jane Powell, Charlotte Rae and Helen Gallagher, and was a guest in the final week of The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She performed for L.A.'s reprise, as Letitia Primrose in On The Twentieth Century, and in 2005 as Berthe in Pippin. She co-starred in 2002 as Sister Mary Amnesia in the National Tour of the 20th Anniversary production of Nunsense, along with Kaye Ballard, Georgia Engel, Lee Meriwether and Darlene Love. In 2007, Hines starred in the City Center Encores! production of Follies. Hines died in her Las Vegas home on October 21, 2024, at the age of 91 from natural causes. A celebration of Mimi’s life, career and marriage will be held to coincide with the ceremony to unveil Hines and Ford's Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.[8] Discography Mimi Hines Sings (Decca Records, 1966) Mimi Hines is a Happening (Decca Records, 1966) Mimi (Custom Fidelity Records) Sidework The Merriest of Christmas Pops, singing on tracks with Ray Martin and his orchestra (RCA Victor, 1959)
10/21

2024

Death

October 21, 2024

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Las Vegas, Nevada United States
Death location

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Obituary

VARIETY Oct 22, 2024 11:54am PT Mimi Hines, Star of ‘Funny Girl’ on Broadway, Dies at 91 Mimi Hines, the Canadian comedian and stage actress who succeeded Barbra Streisand in the Broadway production of “Funny Girl,” has died. She was 91. Hines died of natural causes on Oct. 21 in her home in Los Vegas, according to her long-time attorney, Mark Sendroff. Hines got her Hollywood break performing on “The Tonight Show” with her late husband Phil Ford. After she made the show’s then-host Jack Paar cry with her performance of “Till There Was You,” the pair was an instant hit. Hines and Ford went on to secure bookings on several other late-night programs and nab top billings at nightclubs nationwide. In 1965, Hines took over for Streisand in the original stage production of “Funny Girl” on Broadway, which she starred in for 18 months. Following “Funny Girl,” Hines starred in national productions of “I Do! I Do!,” “Prisoner of Second Avenue,” “Sugar Babies,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Anything Goes,” Never Too Late,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “No, No, Nanette,” “Sugar,” On The Twentieth Century” and “Nite Club Confidential.” During the 1960s, Hines also released three studio albums: “Mimi Hines Is a Happening,” “Mimi Hines Sings,” and “Stars for Defense,” which she recorded with Ford. After appearing in the NBC sitcom “Frasier” in 1999 as Mrs. Latimer, Hines returned to Broadway, starring as Miss Lynch in “Grease” and Hattie Walker in the New York City Center’s production of “Follies.” Hines and Ford were recently honored with a Palm Springs Walk of Fame star. A ceremony will celebrate Mimi’s life, career, and partnership with Ford.

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Mimi Hines lived 20 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 91.

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