Brown, Georgia (1933–1992)

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Brown, Georgia (1933–1992)

British singer and actress. Born Lillian Claire Laizer Getel Klot in London, England, on October 21, 1933; died in London on June 6, 1992; daughter of Mark (a furrier) and Anne (Kirshenbaum) Klot; attended Central Foundation Grammar School, London; married Gareth Wigan, November 7, 1974; children: one son.

Selected films:

A Study in Terror (UK/Ger., 1965); The Fixer (US, 1968); Lock Up Your Daughters (1969); The Raging Moon (Long Ago Tomorrow, 1971); Tales that Witness Madness (1973); Nothing but the Night (1973); Galileo (US/UK, 1975); The Seven Per Cent Solution (US, 1976); The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976); Love at Stake (1988).

Born in London in 1933, Georgia Brown gained her early experience as a night-club singer. Her first appearance on the London stage was in 1956 as Lucy Brown in The Threepenny Opera, a role she repeated in her New York debut, replacing Lotte Lenya . Brown's career would include theater, films, television, recordings, and cabaret, as she shuttled back and forth between the United States and England.

In the 1960s, Brown was lauded for her portrayals of Jeannie in The Lily White Boys and Nancy in the musical Oliver!; for the latter, she received the Variety Critics Poll Award (England) in 1961. She also made her Broadway debut in Oliver! (1962), receiving a nomination for an Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award in 1963. Returning to London, she took over the title role in Maggie May and appeared in Artists Against Apartheid, both 1965. Her later stage work included Widow Begbick in Man is Man (London, 1971) and Side by Side by Sondheim (New York, 1977).

Georgia Brown made movies sporadically and was seen on television in the BBC's "Tophat" (1950), "Show Time" (1954), and a production of Mother Courage (1960). In the U.S., she appeared on game shows, talk fests, and the "Ed Sullivan Show." She performed cabaret at clubs throughout the world, including the famous Blue Angel in New York. Georgia Brown died in 1992, age 58, after a brief illness.

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