Broadway Star John Raitt Dies at 88.

LOS ANGELES -- John Raitt, Broadway legend and star of American Musical theatre for over sixty years, died peacefully Sunday morning February 20th at his Pacific Palisades, California home from complications due to pneumonia, at the age of 88. Best known for his roles in the classic musicals Carousel, Oklahoma! and The Pajama Game, he set the standard for virile, handsome, strong-voiced leading men during the golden age of the Broadway musical.

Born January 29th, 1917 in Santa Ana, California, Raitt first began singing at YMCA camps run by his father. A star athlete in school, he set state records in the javelin, shot put and discus. Although his dream of joining the 1940 US Olympic team was shattered by war, his rich baritone voice led to his first professional singing engagement that same year in the chorus of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of HMS Pinafore. A larger role in the company's The Merry Widow followed and won him an MGM contract and bit parts in the films Flight Command, Billy the Kid and Ziegfeld Girl.

Raitt's growing reputation as a performer led to his audition to take over the lead role of Curly in the Broadway production of the musical Oklahoma! in 1944. After hearing his English-language rendition of the "Figaro" aria from The Barber of Seville, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein placed Raitt in the Chicago company of their smash hit while they finished writing their next show, in which he would star.

The crowd that stormed the Majestic Theatre for the premiere of Carousel on April 19, 1945 was the first Broadway audience John Raitt ever faced. Making musical theatre history by creating his most famous stage role, the ill-fated carnival barker Billy Bigelow, Raitt introduced such classics as "If I Loved You" and the eight-minute aria "Soliloquy," which was written especially for him. His performance was voted the best of the year by an actor in a musical by the New York Drama Critics and Donaldson Awards committees, establishing Raitt as one of the most notable stars of Broadway's golden age. Carousel remained the favorite musical of its composer and its leading man.

After Carousel Raitt starred in three more musicals, Magdalena, Three Wishes for Jamie, and Carnival in Flanders, before hitting another musical jackpot with 1954's The Pajama Game. Working with George Abbott, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse and Harold Prince, Raitt once again introduced a song that became a classic, the ballad "Hey There." He played the role of Sid Sorokin over l,000 times on Broadway before going on to star in the film version with Doris Day, released in 1957.

For the next four decades Raitt thrived starring in national tours of these and other classic musicals including The Music Man, Camelot, Man of La Mancha, Kismet, Destry Rides Again, On A Clear Day, Zorba, and Shenandoah. He spent twenty-five consecutive years headlining in summer stock and proudly claimed that he performed for audiences -- and played golf -- in every state in the union. He gave concerts in the nation's top venues, including Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl, and recorded albums for Decca, Capitol, Warner Brothers, RCA, Columbia and Angel.

Raitt returned to New York for an acclaimed Lincoln Center revival of Carousel in 1965, and Broadway runs in the musical A Joyful Noise, which was Michael Bennett's choreographic debut, and the revue A Musical Jubilee. In 1975 he headed the cast of an original bicentennial musical Sing, America, Sing at the Kennedy Center.

John Raitt was also a familiar face to TV viewers during the heyday of live television. He starred in The Buick Circus Hour (1952/53) and his own 1958-59 summer variety series The Chevy Show with Janet Blair and Edie Adams. He made multiple guest appearances on many major programs, including The Ed Sullivan Show, Bell Telephone Hour and the Academy Awards. The historic NBC live special of Annie Get Your Gun starring Raitt and Mary Martin in l957, proved to be a classic of the period. His later appearances included such diverse programs as the sitcom Third Rock from the Sun, PBS' Great Performances and Sesame Street, Late Night with David Letterman, and the 2003 Tony Awards.

As Broadway's elder statesman, Raitt showed no signs of slowing down. On his 75th birthday he received his "star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received an Ovation Award in Hollywood for services to the Los Angeles theater scene. A year later he was inducted into New York's Theater Hall of Fame, and celebrated the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma! by singing the show's title song on the stage of the St. James Theater in New York (the theater in which Oklahoma! first opened in 1943) prior to a performance of a very different kind of musical -- The Who's Tommy. He also made a cameo appearance as Wiley Post in the musical The Will Rogers Follies at Broadway's Palace Theatre. In 1996 he received a Grammy nomination for his CD John Raitt-Broadway Legend and the following year, at age 80, made his West End debut in a benefit concert at the Prince of Wales Theatre. In 2004 he was featured in the documentary film Broadway: The Golden Age and the TV special Broadway: The American Musical.

With his first wife and accompanist/pianist, Marjorie Haydock, Raitt collaborated on concerts and recitals and raised three children. Kathleen Landry, his second wife, joined him in producing many successful tours in the Seventies. In 1981 Raitt was reunited with and married his college sweetheart, Rosemary Kraemer. They have both received honorary doctorates from Pepperdine University in Malibu, home of the Raitt Recital Hall. Devoted to the development and mentoring of young talent for the musical theatre, Raitt often held master classes and sponsored student performances at both the recital hall and the John Raitt Theatre in Hollywood, where his legacy will continue.

He also had the pleasure of touring and performing in concerts, on television and record with his daughter Bonnie, the multi-Grammy award winning singer who, in her father's words, "keeps the name flyin." Together they were inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame and had dual scholarships instated at the Flora Thornton School of Music at USC in 2003. In addition to Pepperdine, Raitt holds doctoral degrees in music from his alma mater, the University of Redlands, and The Boston Conservatory of Music.

In addition to his wife, Rosemary and daughter Bonnie, Raitt is survived by his sons Steven and David, his wife Kelly, stepdaughters Sally Lokey and her husband Rick Kenworthy, Dee Mahieu and her husband Gary Johnson as well as six grandchildren, Ruby and husband Shaun Evans, Bay, Miles, Arlo, and Ely Raitt and Shiloh Fernandez.

John Raitt was an incredible performer, humanitarian, teacher, husband and father and he will be treasured in the hearts of his family and fans forever.

Broadway theatres will pay tribute to Raitt by dimming their lights Tuesday at 8 p.m. Funeral services will be private; plans for a memorial are pending. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The John Raitt and Rosemary Raitt Scholarship In Musical Theater at the School of Theater, Film and Television at UCLA.