Actress, Singer and Cabaret Artist Supreme, Mary Cleere Haran

A decade ago, on February 5, 2011, Mary Cleere Haran died two days after being struck by an automobile while cycling in Deerfield Beach, Fla. She’d recently been living there, having taken a break from a stellar cabaret career that began in the mid 1980s. Haran debuted at Don’t Tell Mama in 1985, performing the kind of act still popular among cabaret performers today—mixing song with a narrative back story, the result of which is equivalent to an Off-Broadway show. She was especially adept at dedicating her shows to the body of work of one performer or composer. Doris Day was a particular favorite of hers. In addition to mounting Mary Cleere Haran Sings Doris Day, she interviewed Day for the  PBS documentary, “Doris Day: Sentimental Journey,” which she also wrote and co-produced. She also contributed to the PBS documentaries “Remembering Bing,” “Irving Berlin’s America,” “When We Were Young: The Lives of Child Movie Stars” and “Satchmo.”

Stylish and sophisticated, Haran’s style was pop-jazz, rooted in the work of the big band singers of the 1940s. Her repertoire was mostly the standards of the Great American Songbook—of the Gershwins, Harry Warren and especially the lyrics of Lorenz Hart, to whom she paid tribute to in two of her shows, including Falling in Love With Love: The Rodgers and Hart Story. Her last major appearance was a Johnny Mercer tribute show in late 2009 at the Regency. Although she mainly worked with Richard Rodney Bennett at the piano, she was also accompanied by pianists including Tedd Firth, Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap, Don Rebic and Lee Musiker.

In 1992 she made her recording debut on the Columbia label with There’s a Small Hotel: Live at the Algonquin. Later albums included This Funny World: Mary Cleere Haran Sings Lyrics by Hart (1995), This Heart of Mine: Classic Movie Songs of the Forties (1994), Pennies From Heaven: Movie Songs From the Depression Era (1998), The Memory of All That: Gershwin on Broadway and in Hollywood (1999) and Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the ’20s (2002).

The second of eight children in an Irish Catholic family, Haran, born on May 13, 1952, was the daughter of a professor of theater and film at San Francisco City College. Her mother encouraged her to study violin and dancing and she was, as a teenager, a champion Irish step dancer. But Haran’s love was in singing, an art she cultivated, inspired by her favorites—Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland and Peggy Lee. In her teens she performed in musicals at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco, and at San Francisco State University she majored in English, which she considered to be the reason she was partial to lyricists. After college she sang at casinos in Nevada and Texas with The New Deal Rhythm Band. She moved to New York City in the late 1970s, making her Broadway debut playing a band singer in The 1940s Radio Hour in 1979. Haran also appeared Off Broadway in Manhattan Music, Swingtime Canteen and Heebie Jeebies. On television, she had a recurring role as a nightclub singer in the series “100 Centre Street.”

Haran married twice. Her second marriage to writer and director Joe Gilford produced a son, Jacob.

Here’s a taste of the talent of Mary Cleere Haran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6lbVGKofFA