SHIRLEY JONES

Shirley Jones’s singing voice sounded operatic and wholly American all at once. At the age of 19, she was the first and only singer to be placed under personal contract to Rodgers and Hammerstein. She quickly went on to star in three of the most successful musical films of all time: OKLAHOMA (1955), CAROUSEL (1956), and THE MUSIC MAN (1962), besides winning an Academy Award for ELMER GANTRY (1960). There’s a hint of hands-on-hips defiance in Jones’s reading voice. She wants the listener to know she was not just the perfect ingenue. She enjoyed sex. She loved and stuck by a philandering husband. She single-handedly raised four boys in the turbulent 1960s while continuing a successful career. Shirley Jones comes across sounding like a thoroughly modern woman. Maybe, sometimes, nice girls do finish first. B.P. 2014 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2013]