Elisabeth Welch

Made her final professional appearance in the 1996 British television documentary "Black Divas," singing "Stormy Weather" for the last time in public.

Launched a one-woman show in 1986, at age 81, at New York's Lucille Lortel Theatre, and earned an Obie and 'special' Outer Critics' Circle awards for "making old song favorites sound young, fresh and vital."

Despite severe arthritis, she persevered in such 1970s musicals as "Pippin" and "Cindy-Eller," sometimes performing sitting down.

One of her best screen roles was Beulah, the nightclub owner and hostess, in Ealing's Dead of Night (1945).

Briefly married to a musician at age 18; later married jazz musician Luke Smith, who died in 1936.

Ivor Novello wrote two songs especially for her in the 1935 musical, "Glamorous Night.".

In British films of the 1930s and 1940s, American-born singer Elisabeth Welch made several memorable guest appearances in cabaret sequences, and starred opposite Paul Robeson in two features. Sophisticated, glamorous and charming, her appearances were a refreshing departure from the stereotype of black women perpetuated by Hollywood films of that time.

A popular Paris nightclub singer after performing in the black revue "Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928" and frequently played the Moulin Rouge.

First gained attention in 1923 singing the song "Charleston" in front of a group of flashy, frenzied dancers in the jazz-age musical "Runnin' Wild" on Broadway.