Virginia Vestoff

Well-known Broadway actress Virginia Vestoff was born on December 9, 1939, in New York City, the daughter of vaudevillians. Her father was a Russian immigrant and mother a direct descent of composer/songwriter Stephen Foster (1826-1864). Both parents died young, leaving Virginia an orphan by age 9 and living with relatives. Her lonely, unhappy childhood led to an overactive imagination and a propensity toward the performing arts. At age 12 she won third prize on Ted Mack & the Original Amateur Hour (1948) and made her professional debut in the Children's Chorus of the New York City Opera Company. She later became a student at New York's High School of the Performing Arts. She dropped out of school at age 15 to pursue her acting dream and eventually found herself touring with a dance company. This led to her professional stage debut in "The Boyfriend" in 1957. Virginia's versatility would shine in both legit classical plays and musicals, keeping her constantly employed throughout the 1960s and 1970s in such shows as "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road," "The Threepenny Opera," "Camelot," "My Fair Lady," "The King and I," "The Misanthrope," "Love and Let Love," "Man With a Load of Mischief," and "A Doll's House" (understudying Liv Ullmann as Nora). She took her first Broadway bow in the musical revue "From A to Z" in 1960. While performing in New York the role of Daisy in the Sherlock Holmes musical "Baker Street" in 1965, she met and subsequently married psychologist/writer Morty Lefkoe, president and founder of the Lefkoe Institute and creator of the Lefkoe Method, a psychological process. Her other Broadway performances include "Irma La Douce" (understudying the title role before taking it over), "Boccaccio," the rock musical "Via Galactica," and, most notably, her portrayal of Abigail Adams in the hit revolutionary-period musical "1776," for which she received a 1969 Tony Award nomination. She lost that year to Marian Mercer for "Promises, Promises." In the late '60s, the lovely red-headed actress started to find replacement work on daytime soaps. From 1969 to 1970, she replaced a vacationing Elizabeth Hubbard as Dr. Althea Davis on The Doctors (1963). She then assumed the role of Samantha in the cult vampire soap Dark Shadows (1966) for four months, superseding a departing Kathryn Leigh Scott. She also wound up pitching household items on commercial TV on a fairly regular basis. Virginia had little chance to make a strong showing in films, appearing in only three supporting roles during her lifetime. She played minor ladylike parts in Such Good Friends (1971) and Robert Altman's A Wedding (1978), but, in between, was fortunate enough to preserve her award-worthy role of Abigail Adams in the celluloid version of 1776 (1972), again opposite William Daniels as her husband, Continental Congress delegate John Adams. Virginia's scant prime-time TV appearances include episodes of The Quinns (1977) and Kojak (1973). Sadly, she died of cancer at the age of 42 on May 2, 1982, in her native New York City.