Fiorello! Star and Broadway Veteran Ellen Hanley Dies at 80

Ellen Hanley, who created the role of Fiorello H. La Guardia's first wife Thea in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello!, passed away on Monday in Norwalk, Conn. She was 80. Hanley died of a stroke after a long battle with cancer, according to the New York Times.

Before staring in the original production of Bock and Harnick's Fiorello!, Hanley won a 1947 Theater World Award for her perfomance in the musical Barefoot Boy With Cheek, which ran at the Martin Beck Theater. Originally from Ohio, Hanley made her Broadway debut in the original production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun and later replaced Polly Bergen in First Impressions.  She was also on Broadway as Abigail Adams in the 1969 production of 1776 and in the Vernon Duke-Ogden Nash revue Two's Company.

In 1963, Hanley starred as Adriana in a successful Off-Broadway revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys From Syracuse, directed by Christopher Hewitt.  She also toured in stock during the late '40s and the '50s.

Hanley married the late Ronnie Graham, another performer, in 1951. They were divorced in 1963. Ms. Hanley is survived by her daughter Nora Graham, her son, Julian, her sister, Patricia Hanley, of New York; her brother, playwright William Hanley of Ridgefield, Conn.; and several grandchildren.

Photo of Hanley by Associated Press