Our Daily Dead

LA Times
John Raitt, the ruggedly handsome musical theater leading man who launched his Broadway career in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1945 hit “Carousel” and later co-starred in “The Pajama Game” on Broadway and in the film version, died Sunday. He was 88.

Raitt, the father of Grammy-winning singer Bonnie Raitt, died at his Pacific Palisades home of complications from pneumonia, his manager, James Fitzgerald, told The Times.

Raitt played Curly in the national tour of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” in 1944, before he was cast as carnival carousel operator Billy Bigelow in “Carousel,” in which he sang “If I Loved You” with Jan Clayton, and “Soliloquy,” the show-stopping solo number that displayed his considerable vocal range and virtuosity.

“Overnight, he became very, very celebrated,” said musical theater historian Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, who saw Raitt perform in “Carousel” in 1945.

John Raitt memorabilia at eBay.com

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