Rita McKenzie, the singer and actress best known for starring in the exuberantly performed one-woman show, "Ethel Merman's Broadway," has passed away last Saturday, Feb. 17 in Los Angeles after a long illness, according to her husband and talent agent, Scott Stander. She was 76.
Actress Rita McKenzie arrives at the premiere for "Boynton Beach Club" held at the Pacific Design Centre Silver Screen Theatre on August 1, 2006 in Los Angeles, California.
Rita McKenzie's 'Boisterous' Career
McKenzie's rise to fame first happened in 1988 in New York after she starred as the iconic stage performer Merman, who headlined Broadway hits like "Annie Get Your Gun," "Anything Goes," "Hello, Dolly," and "Gypsy."
This particular off-Broadway solo show launched McKenzie's acclaim and she became known as one of the best Merman impersonators in the country, at the time.
While her understanding of the Broadway icon's "bread-and-butter" style of ardent belting, she is also second to none when it comes to recreating Merman's appeal and humorous nature.
This mastery gave the show its longevity, allowing her to perform it for decades after its inaugural run, even as recent as 2016.
Besides the one-woman production, she also would go on to portray Merman in other projects that reiterated the Broadway legend's most famous roles, including the revivals of "Anything Goes!" and "Gypsy," a nationwide tour of "Annie Get Your Gun," and many more.
McKenzie also had the opportunity to headline the gender-bent version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple," opposite of her longstanding friend Barbara Eden, in a three-year-long tour across the country.
One of the highlights of her career is McKenzie's performance in the 1993 LA production "Ruthless," which is Marvin Laird and Joel Paley's parody of a host of theatre classics like "The Bad Seed," "All About Eve," and "Gypsy."
In this particular production, McKenzie took on the role of the theater critic Lita Encore, whose comical and ironic hatred for musicals was embodied by the actress as if Merman was the one performing.
McKenzie would go on to record the musical's first cast album alongside her fellow LA cast members and she would also reprise the role in a 2015 off-Broadway revival of the musical.
Today, the actress is survived by her husband, Stander; her daughter, Jennifer; her son-in-law, Tom Otto; her son, Derek Pflug; her daughter-in-law, Vanessa; her sister, Nancy; her brother-in-law, Joe Wood; and her three grandchildren named Mason, Jackson Pflug, and Thomas Otto.
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