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Veteran Broadway actress Barbara Cook, known for her prolific career in musicals and cabaret and her soprano vocals, died on Tuesday.
The actress died from respiratory failure at age 89.
Cook who had been ill for a while died in her Manhattan home surrounded by her family and close friends.
Cook, a native of Atlanta, broke out on Broadway in the 1950s with roles in ‘Oklahoma’,’Carousel’ and most notably ‘The Music Man’, for which she won a Tony award for best-featured actress in a musical for her role as Marian Paroo.
Cook turned to solo shows after her Broadway career withered in the late 1960s as she battled alcoholism and weight gain.
In the 1970s, she became a concert singer, performing at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
In her 2016 memoir ‘Then & Now’, Cook describes hitting rock bottom as a drunk.
“I was so broke that I was stealing food from the supermarket by slipping sandwich meat in my coat pocket.”
In May 2017, Cook’s son Adam LeGrant told The New York Times that the actress had retired from the stage after more than six decades in show-business.
