Mimi Hines

She also co-starred in the off-Broadway revival of Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70, with Jane Powell, Charlotte Rae and Helen Gallagher, and was a guest in the final week of The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She performed for L.A.'s reprise, as Letitia Primrose in On The Twentieth Century, and in 2005 as Berthe in Pippin.

She co-starred in 2002 as Sister Mary Amnesia in the National Tour of the 20th Anniversary production of Nunsense, along with Kaye Ballard, Georgia Engel, Lee Meriwether and Darlene Love. In 2007, Hines starred in the City Center Encores! production of Follies.

Hines appeared as Mrs. Latimer on the television program Frasier and returned to Broadway in 1994 for the Tommy Tune production of Grease, in which she appeared as Miss Lynch.

"The partnership eventually dissolved with Mimi and Phil divorcing in 1972 but each continuing to perform solo.

In 1966, Hines succeeded Barbra Streisand on Broadway in Funny Girl, performing the role for eighteen months, after which she starred in touring companies of I Do! I Do! and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, as well as productions of Anything Goes, Never Too Late, The Pajama Game, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, No, No, Nanette and Sugar.

In 1965 it all culminated in the role of a lifetime for Mimi when she replaced Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" on Broadway in the role of entertainer Fanny Brice. The part of the famed Jewish torch singer/comedienne fit like a glove and Mimi stayed with the show for a healthy 18 months, putting her own indelible stamp on the role. Phil co-starred with Mimi in the smash musical playing the role of Eddie Ryan, Fanny's show biz confidante. Mimi continued to perform in musical comedy (often opposite Phil) with productions of "I Do! I Do!," "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," "Anything Goes," "Never Too Late," "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," "No, No, Nanette," "Hello, Dolly!" and plenty of others. She also recorded albums during this peak and went on to appear in acting parts on TV, including "Love, American Style" and, more recently, "Frasier.

In 1964 Hines and Ford filmed a pilot episode for a potential sitcom, Mimi, that would have starred the two as owners of a resort hotel, but the series was not picked up for airing.

She and Phil earned their big break on Jack Paar's "The Tonight Show" program on August 28, 1958. Their routine included Mimi singing a tear-inducing rendition of "Till There Was You. " From then on Ford and Hines became a hot commodity in niteries, Las Vegas showrooms and on TV variety shows hosted by the likes of Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, Jimmy Dean and Johnny Carson.

The then-19-year-old met the much older Phil Ford in Alaska while both were playing different clubs in 1952. She was a quick fill-in after his female partner accidentally broke her ankle. The rest is history. They married two years later and continued performing together in night clubs with Phil serving as the straight man. The plain-Jane, rubber-faced singer/comedienne with the prominent dimples and toothy grin had her customers alternately rolling in the aisles with her "chipmunk" routines and sobbing in their beers with heart-wrenching versions of torch songs.

As the zany distaff member of the one-time husband-and-wife comedy team of "Ford and Hines," the incomparable Mimi Hines has withstood an amazing number of highs and lows in a five-decade career. Like the Sondheim song says, this trooper is, at age 70+, "still here. " She was born in Canada in 1933 and grew up with a marvelous knack for making faces and getting laughs.