Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals Plain and Fancy (1955), Candide (1956) and The Music Man (1957) among others, winning a Tony Award for the last. She continued performing mostly in theatre until the mid-1970s, when she began a second career as a cabaret and concert singer. She also made numerous recordings. During her years as Broadway’s leading ingénue, Cook was lauded for her excellent lyric soprano voice. She was particularly admired for her vocal agility, wide range, warm sound, and emotive interpretations. As she aged her voice took on a darker quality, even in her head voice, that was less prominent in her youth. At the time of her death, Cook was widely recognized as one of the "premier interpreters" of musical theatre songs and standards, in particular the songs of composer Stephen Sondheim. Her subtle and sensitive interpretations of American popular song continued to earn high praise even into her eighties. She was named an honoree at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. Early life Cook was born in Atlanta, the daughter of Nell (née Harwell) and Charles Bunyan Cook. Her father was a traveling hat salesman and her mother was an operator for Southern Bell. Her parents divorced when she was a child and, after her only sister died of whooping cough, Barbara lived alone with her mother. She later described their relationship as "so close, too close. I slept with my mother until I came to New York. Slept in the same bed with her. That's just, it's wrong. But to me, it was the norm....As far as she was concerned, we were one person." Though Barbara began singing at an early age, at the Elks Club and to her father over the phone, she spent three years after graduating from high school working as a typist. Career Early career In 1947 Cook was engaged as a featured performer for Atlanta's Southeastern Fair at the Lakewood Fairgrounds. While visiting Manhattan in 1948 with her mother, she decided to stay and try to find work as an actress. In 1949 she performed in a touring vaudeville act entitled "A Toast To Rodgers and Hammerstein" which was organized by pianist Erwin Strauss, the son of the composer Oscar Straus. Beginning in Boston, the act