Rita McKenzie Dies: Star Of One-Woman Show ‘Ethel Merman’s Broadway’ Was 76

Bruce Haring

18 February 2024 at 4:53 pm·2-min read

Rita McKenzie, known for staging the longest-running one-woman show in theatrical history, died Feb. 17 in Los Angeles days before her 77th birthday. She succumbed to what her family described as a long-term illness.

A powerhouse stage voice and theatrical personality, McKenzie’s 1988 off-Broadway one-woman show, Ethel Merman’s Broadway, became the longest-running one- woman show in theatrical history.

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McKenzie had a wide theatrical resume. She played Lita Encore in the Los Angeles premiere of Ruthless! The Musical and reprised the role in the recent New York revival of the show.

She also performed a wide range of stage roles throughout the U..S , including Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes!, appeared in the 50th Anniversary tour of Annie Get Your Gun, played Rose in Gypsy, and starred in a three-year U.S. tour of Neil Simon’s The Female Odd Couple, co-starring with Barbara Eden.

Additionally, she was the opening act for Milton Berle and his 90th Birthday Tour, Don Knotts, Norm Crosby, Donald O’Connor and Steve Allen. She appeared in the Joe Bologna, Reneé Taylor & Lainie Kazan tour of Bermuda Avenue Triangle as Reneé Taylor’s daughter.

She also performed for the Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Baltimore Pops, and she sang the closing finale for PBS’s Capital Fourth Celebration on the Washington Mall in 1995.

McKenzie had featured roles on TV in The Brady Bunch -The Final Days, Caroline In the City, Frasier with Kelsey Grammar, the film Meet Wally Sparks with Rodney Dangerfield and the TV series Big Brother Jake opposite Richard Lewis and Don Rickles

Her most recent role was as associate producer for the pre-Broadway tour of Rupert Holmes’ All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Survivors include her husband, Scott Stander, her daughter, Jenniferm and her husbandm Tom Otto, a son, Derek Pflug and his wife Vanessa, a sister, Nancy and her husband Joe Wood, and three grandchildren, Mason and Jackson Pflug and Thomas Otto. No memorial plans have been announced.

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