Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The King and I is a stage musical
based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The
production premiered at Broadway’s St. James Theater. It was an immediate hit,
winning Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Actress for Gertrude Lawrence and
Best Featured Actor for Yul Brynner. Lawrence died of cancer a year and a half
after the opening, and the role of Anna was played by other actresses during
the remainder of the Broadway run of over three years, 1,246 performances.

From left: Gertrude Lawrence (Anna Leonowens), Robin Craven (Sir Edward Ramsey) and Yul Brynner (The King)

Country music artist Reba Nell McEntire has released 26 studio albums
and has had 35 number-one singles. She branched out into film starting
with 1990’s Tremors. Reba starred in the Broadway revival of Annie Get
Your Gun and also starred in her own TV sitcom, Reba on WB (20001-
2007) for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for best
Performance by an Actress in a Television Series-Musical or Comedy.

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(Academy Of Country Music Awards 2011)

Barbra Streisand, with Johnny Desmond, in 1964’s Funny Girl

The Broadway production of Funny Girl is a musical with a semi-biographical
plot based on the life and career of film star and comedienne Fanny Brice. It
starred Barbra Strieisand and opened at the Winter Garden Theater and
closed at the Broadway Theater, for a total run of 1,348 performances. The
musical was nominated for eight Tony Awards, but failed to win any. It faced
tough competition from Hello Dolly!.  

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Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks, The Baby Snooks Show 
on CBS radio (1944)

Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer

          
               Al Jolson (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950)

Al Jolson was a singer, comedian and actor who,during the height of his
career, was dubbed "The World’s Greatest Entertainer” and  was also
the highest paid. Jolson is best remembered as the star in the first
full length talking movie, The Jazz Singer in 1927.

The Supremes: Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Diana Ross 

Diana Ross was the lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during
the 1960s. She left the group in 1970 to begin a solo career that ventured
into film and Broadway. Ross received a Best Actress Academy Award
nomination in 1972, for her role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues,
which she won a Golden Glove award. She won seven American Music
Awards, was honored with a 2012 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award,
and won a Tony Award for her one- woman show, An Evening with Diana
Ross, in 1977.