Renee Orin; Broadway Singer Starred in Husband’s Works

Renee Orin, a Broadway veteran of such musicals as “Plain and Fancy” and Tennessee Williams’ “Slapstick Tragedy,” has died. She was 73.

Orin, married for 49 years to Tony-winning Broadway composer Albert Hague, died Saturday of lymphoma at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, according to publicist Pegge Forrest.

For the past three years, the husband and wife team had performed a highly praised cabaret act of songs and show business stories, appearing in such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s Cinegrill. They also recorded the act on a CD, “Still Young and Foolish.”

“I played the lead in the first musical Albert ever wrote,” Orin told The Times last year. “It was called ‘The Reluctant Virgin’ until the producers got cold feet and changed the title to ‘The Reluctant Lady.’ In any case, it never left Cleveland.”

That was in 1948. Orin, born in Slatington, Pa., and educated at Carnegie Mellon University, was working in Ohio summer stock companies when she landed the part in Hague’s musical.

Hague moved to New York as a freelance pianist, and she followed him--hiring him as her music teacher. Hague later became internationally recognizable as the cranky music teacher, Professor Shorofsky, in the “Fame” motion picture and the subsequent television series, which brought the couple to Los Angeles.

Orin starred in Hague’s first musical on Broadway, “Plain and Fancy,” which ran for 461 performances and produced the standard, “Young and Foolish.” That song was recorded by such artists as Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher and the McGuire Sisters and became a signature for the intertwined careers of composer-pianist Hague and singer Orin.

She also performed on Broadway in a revival of “Pal Joey” and was in several leading regional shows, including a revival of “Take Me Along” with Gene Kelly and “Fiddler on the Roof” with Jack Gilford.

After she and her husband moved west with “Fame,” Orin won acting roles on that series and other television shows including “Chicago Hope,” “Divorce Court” and “Charlie & Company.”

In Hollywood, Orin also began writing for television, doing scripts for such series as “Facts of Life,” and working on motion picture screenplays.

She is survived by her husband, who lives in Marina del Rey, and their children, Janet Hague of Portland, Ore., and Andrew Hague of New York City.

A memorial service is scheduled for noon Friday at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.