Born 1920 as Ruby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares in San Diego, California, American actress, singer, and dancer Nanette Fabray began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role in High Button Shoes (1947) and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life.
In the mid-1950s, Fabray served as Sid Caesar’s comedic partner on Caesar’s Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, as well as appearing with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV series One Day at a Time. She also appeared as the mother of Christine Armstrong (played by her niece Shelley Fabares) in the television series “Coach.”
Fabray overcame a significant hearing impairment and was a long-time advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Her honors for representing the disabled included the President’s Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
Fabray died in 2018, at the Canterbury Nursing home in California at the age of 97 from natural causes. These vintage photos captured portraits of young Nanette Fabray from between the 1940s and 1960s.
The sixth photo of the woman wearing ballet pointe shoes is actually CYD CHARISSE.
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