AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Imogene Coca

Artist:Imogene Coca

Song:Repent

Album:On the Twentieth Century

Of course Imogene Coca was best known for her days on the 50s TV series Your Show of Shows. But she started out on Broadway in the 30s. Imogene made a triumphant return to Broadway when she was Tony nominated for playing Leticia Primrose in the 1978 Broadway musical On the Twentieth Century. Repent was her big song in the show. She was born Nov.18,1908 in Philadelphia. Her father was a violinist and a vaudeville orchestra conductor. Her mother was a dancer. After Imogene took piano, dance and voice lessons as a child, she moved to New York at age 16 and got her first job in the chorus of the 1925 musical When You Smile. After that, she performed in clubs until she got her first big break in the 1934 show New Faces of 1934 where she performed a comic strip tease. Imogene continued to perform mostly on stage until the dawn of TV and she appeared with Sid Caesar on The Admiral Broadway Review in 1949 which led to Your Show of Shows from 1950-54. Imogene won an Emmy in 1951 So this was really the high point of her career. After Your Show of Shows ended, Imogene did mostly TV guest shots. A couple of unsuccessful attempts were made to give her a series. Then she made her big Broadway comeback in the 1978 musical On the Twentieth Century. This was based on Ben Hecht's 1932 play Twentieth Century and the 1934 film version. This new version added songs by Adolph Green and Betty Comden and music by Cy Coleman. Madeline Kahn and John Cullum starred. Imogene was billed third. Imogene was Tony nominated and her career was revived. This was her final Broadway show. But I'm sure most will remember her as the dead mother in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation. And she was a regular on the daytime soap One Life to Live. Today Imogene Coca is considered to be a big influence on female comics like Carol Burnett and Whoopi Goldberg. So it's great that she had that big Broadway comeback. The original cast album of On the Twentieth Century is available as a digital download. Imogene Coca was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and died on June 2, 2001 at age 92. Here's Imogene Coca performing Repent from On the Twentieth Century on the 1982 TV special Broadway Plays Washington on Kennedy Center Tonight.