Anna Russell

Actress, singer, lyricist, and composer, Anna Russell began as a folk singer on BBC radio in 1931, in Canada in 1940, and since 1943, has appeared as a soloist on the concert stage, making her New York City debut in a one-woman show in 1948 with which she has toured the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada; she wrote the lyrics and music for Anna Russell's Little Show (1953) and played the Witch in the opera Hansel and Gretel (1953); with Robert Paine Grose and Joan White, she founded Grow Productions, Inc. in 1963, which presented Lady Audley's Secret at the New York World's Fair in 1964; she has composed, written, and performed her own material on Columbia recordings, is the author of The Power of Being a Positive Stinker (1955) and the Anna Russell Songbook (1958), and was the President of the B & R Music Publishing Company. She received the Canadian Women's Press Club Award in 1956 as the best Canadian comedy writer of the year.