A Sad Farewell To Beth Howland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     When I got the news, last night, about the death of Beth Howland, I was in shock!

                                       First, she had died on December 31, 2015.  She did not want a fuss made, but only now is the news surfacing.

                                         Beth was an original.  Even if Vera on "Alice" and Amy in "Company" were the only things she ever did--they primarily were--it would have been enough to merit her iconic status.

                                            The first time I ever heard "Getting Married Today" was on the "Company" Original Broadway Cast LP.  I had never heard a song like it, and I could not imagine how anyone could sing it.  I have heard many renderings over the years--even practiced it, myself--but none touched Beth Howland's.

                                            Beth was Off-Broadway, in the Sixties musical, "Your Own Thing," a spoof of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." She was married to, and had a daughter by, Michael J. Pollard, by whom she had a daughter,   Later, she married "Murphy Brown" actor Charles Kimbrough, who, interestingly enough, had been one of her male costars in the original "Company."

                                              Too soon has Beth left us. Though she was 74 at the time of her death, she seemed eternally young, like Vera and Amy. There was a youthfulness about her that could not be tarnished.

                                                Alas, lung cancer did.

                                                But we have Beth preserved in memory, so she will live on in our hearts.

                                                 Here is Beth, with Steve Elmore and Teri Ralston, singing "Getting Married Today."  Farewell, Beth.  We shall miss you, another Legend Of The Musical Stage.