Joan Roberts, stage, film and television actress, dies at 95

Longtime Rockville Centre resident Joan Roberts, a stage, film and television actress who created the role of Laurey in the original Broadway production of “Oklahoma!,” died on Aug. 13 in Stamford, Conn. She was 95.

In an April 2007 interview, Roberts told a Herald reporter that she was preparing to head to the Illinois Little Theatre in several weeks to once again take on the role of operetta star Heidi Schiller, as she had in the 2002 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” At the time she was interviewed, Roberts was also working on a book, “Stage Right,” that has since been published, and chronicles her many years in the entertainment industry.

Roberts said that she hoped the book would guide young people who are interested in making theater their career. “I want the young people to know that if they’re going to embrace a career of any kind, especially theater, they need to be qualified; they need to be prepared,” she said. “It’s not a question of jiggling your hips and showing your belly button. You have to know the craft and be ready to make sacrifices and work hard. The message I want to convey is that you don’t have to be compromised. You can do what’s good, right and traditional.”

Having worked with local high school students, Roberts said that today’s youth needs direction. “They need a lot of help today,” she said. “They’re misdirected, especially by the media. It’s just awful what they’re told… I call it ‘Stage Right’ because it’s what you use on stage. There’s only one way to approach the stage and it’s the right way.”

Born Josephine Rose Seagrist and reared in Astoria, Queens, just down the road from Paramount Studios, Roberts started her acting career at the age of 6 when she walked by herself to the studio, looking for a job in the entertainment industry. “I knew what my future was going to be,” she said. She found herself a role as part of the original cast of the “Our Gang” series, which later became the “Little Rascals,” and went home with $15 that day. When she showed her mother the money, her mother went to Paramount to make sure her daughter wasn’t lying.

Roberts’ Broadway debut was in “Sunny River,” a short-lived musical in 1941 by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein. Hammerstein took a liking to her and cast her in “Oklahoma!” the following year. A pioneering musical, as well as the first to sell a soundtrack of the original cast recording, “Oklahoma!” made theater history.

“It was a new type of musical because we introduced a story line,” Roberts said. “It was the true story about the people of Oklahoma and the development of the west. We were all supposed to be farmhands. It was entirely new. Up to that point, theater had been ‘Ziegfeld’s Follies’ and musical comedies and this was a real true story with music. Every lyric and every line furthered the plot.”

Throughout a career that spanned more than 60 years, Roberts also starred on Broadway in “Marinka,” “Are You With It?” and “High Button Shoes.” She worked for the Shuberts for a period of time, traveling throughout the United States in a number of musicals, and she also performed at various regional theaters across the country in addition to her numerous stage, television and film appearances over the years. While in summer stock theater she performed at the Westbury Music Fair. A lifelong member of the Republican party, she sang the “Star Spangled Banner” in 1964 for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Twice married, Roberts’s survivors include a son, John (Jack) Donlon, two stepsons, Robert and James Peter, step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren.