Trivia

Gave her final Tony nominated performance for her role as the piano player in Broadway's musical hit "The Full Monty," on August 18th - she passed away five days later. (August 2001)

In the 1950s, at The Music Circus (a theater-in-the-round in Sacramento, Calif.) a prop chair collapsed under her weight while she was singing, The musicians stopped playing, and in a dead silence she got up to her knees, spread her arms and sang, "That's why I love the theater".

John Garcia, Executive Director/Producer of "The Column" Awards, created an award in her honor. This is given to individuals who overcome personal, physical, or other major problems in their lives and continue to work in theater, whether behind or in front of the curtain. Whatever obstacles--personal problems, health issues, etc.--were affecting their lives offstage, on stage they give it their all. They are living the theme of what Ms. Freeman always said: "The show must go on".

Was considered for the role of Alice Nelson in The Brady Bunch (1969).

Was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Featured Role - Musical) for "The Full Monty.".

Graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Was in two Oscar Best Picture winners The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and The Sting (1973), and one other nominee: A Place in the Sun (1951).

She has appeared in nine films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Naked City (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), The Nutty Professor (1963), Point Blank (1967), The Sting (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980) and Shrek (2001).

Freeman's career in show business began in vaudeville at the age of three, singing "Black Bottom.".