Isabel Bigley, Guys and Dolls' Original Sarah Brown, Dies at 80

Isabel Bigley Barnett, who won a Tony Award as the original Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, died Saturday in a Los Angeles hospital of pulmonary disease, according to The Desert Sun of Palm Springs. She was 80 years old.

Born in the Bronx, Isabel Bigley joined the New York production of Oklahoma! as a chorus member in 1946, according to the newspaper. After five months, she was transferred to the London production and soon took over the role of Laurey opposite Howard Keel as Curly. She stayed with the show for more than three years, and also performed in the first musical on the BBC, Gay Rosalinda. When her nightclub act received rave reviews, composer Frank Loesser flew to London and gave her the part of Sarah in his new musical, Guys and Dolls. She won a 1951Tony for best featured actress and went on to star in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Me and Juliet in 1953. After marrying Lawrence Barnett, president of the MCA talent agency, she retired from performing. She and Barnett had six children.

In recent years, Bigley Barnett and her husband became noted philanthropists. She devoted much time to the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, becoming the first woman chair of the board in 2005. She and her husband established a graduate program in arts policy and administration at Ohio State University, the first of its kind in the United States. She donated her theater memorabilia to the Isabel Bigley Barnett Collection at the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute at Ohio State.