Actress best known for Aspects of Love
Born: May 25, 1950;
Died: October 31, 2019
ANN Crumb, who has died aged 69, was a Tony-nominated actress who originated the role of Rose Vibert in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects Of Love.
She was the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb.
She made her Broadway debut in the original cast of Les Miserables in 1987 and starred in Aspects Of Love opposite Michael Ball in London's West End in 1989 and on Broadway in 1990.
Crumb received a Tony nomination for the title role in the musical adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina by Daniel Levine and Peter Kellogg, which ran for 18 previews and 46 performances in 1992.
She received undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from the University of Michigan and studied violin. She ended her violin career after she injured her right arm in a fall from a horse.
She then planned for a career in clinical medicine and was working as a clinician in Philadelphia when she took a job in the national tour of El Grande de Coca Cola and switched to theatre.
Crumb starred opposite John Cullum in a US tour of Man Of La Mancha in 1995. Her television appearances included Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and One Life To Live.
Also known as a classical and jazz singer, Crumb's rendition of Three Early Songs was on the Grammy Award-winning George Crumb's 70th Birthday Album.
Aspects of Love was the biggest hit in Crumb's career. After working in the chorus in Chess, she found herself taking on a challenging lead and acting part. Speaking at the time, Crumb described the tempestuous Rose as ″a woman who lives on the edge all the time.″
″She’s the one who screams and cries and all that,″ Crumb said. ″You can’t say, ‘Isn’t she pathetic?’ or ‘She’s so sweet.’ That’s the challenge of carrying it.″
Crumb said her performing came naturally because her father was a composer and her mother taught music but she said she was sometimes daunted by her surroundings. ″The irony was I was embarrassed to sing in a house where I’d only heard some of the finest classical singers,″ she said. ″I never opened my mouth in the house.″
Crumb appeared in Aspects as part of an exchange agreement between New York and London branches of the actors’ union, Equity. She was the trade-off for Sarah Brightman, Lloyd Webber’s wife, who appeared in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera.
Crumb said she found acting a fraught profession. ″There’s really so little work and so many terrific people.″ She was also homesick during the Aspects run. ″At first, I thought it was going to be hard to go back because the quality of life here for the average person is much gentler and kinder.
″But I must say in the last few weeks, I’ve gotten a little homesick. The other night after the show, we were trying to find a place to eat, and there was no place to go.″
Her vocal coach, Bill Schuman, said Crumb died from ovarian cancer at her parents' home in Media, Pennsylvania.
She is survived by her father, her mother, Elizabeth Crumb, a violinist, and brothers Peter and David, the latter a composer.
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