{"id":19796,"date":"2026-02-28T12:48:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=19796"},"modified":"2026-02-28T12:48:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:48:56","slug":"broadway-icon-sondra-lee-original-hello-dolly-and-peter-pan-star-passes-away-at-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=19796","title":{"rendered":"Broadway Icon Sondra Lee, Original \u2018Hello, Dolly!\u2019 and \u2018Peter Pan\u2019 Star, Passes Away at 97"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"225\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Sondra Lee<\/span><\/span>, a celebrated Broadway performer whose career spanned nearly 90 years, has died at 97. She passed away from natural causes on Feb. 23 at her home in <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">New York City<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"227\" data-end=\"605\">She was best known for originating Tiger Lily in the 1954 Broadway production of <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Peter Pan<\/span><\/span> and Minnie Fay in the 1964 premiere of <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Hello, Dolly!<\/span><\/span>. Born in 1928 in Newark, New Jersey, she overcame early health challenges to pursue ballet and theater, later collaborating with <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Jerome Robbins<\/span><\/span> on <em data-start=\"593\" data-end=\"604\">Peter Pan<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"607\" data-end=\"909\">Lee also appeared in <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">La Dolce Vita<\/span><\/span> by <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Federico Fellini<\/span><\/span>, and became a respected teacher and mentor. Her final public appearance was in June 2025 at <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Carnegie Hall<\/span><\/span> during a <em data-start=\"846\" data-end=\"861\">Hello, Dolly!<\/em> concert, where she received a standing ovation.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"911\" data-end=\"949\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">A public memorial is planned for 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sondra Lee, a celebrated Broadway performer whose career spanned nearly 90 years, has died at 97. She passed away from natural causes on Feb. 23 at her home in New York City. She was best known for originating Tiger Lily in the 1954 Broadway production of Peter Pan and Minnie Fay in the 1964 premiere&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=19796\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Broadway Icon Sondra Lee, Original \u2018Hello, Dolly!\u2019 and \u2018Peter Pan\u2019 Star, Passes Away at 97&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19798,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796\/revisions\/19798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}