Portia Nelson

Portia Nelson (born Betty Mae Nelson; May 27, 1920 – March 6, 2001) was an American popular singer, songwriter, actress, and author.

Nelson was born in Brigham City, Utah on May 27, 1920.

Back home in Los Angeles in early 1946, Nelson worked briefly as secretary to film director André de Toth; she held another secretarial job in the publicity department of United Artists Pictures.

Around that time she adopted the name Portia, a nickname that friends gave her based on her love of the popular radio soap opera Portia Faces Life.

She was known for occasionally sitting at pianos on the lot and demonstrating songs, and word of her vocal talents spread.

Jane Russell was then on the lot making a film, Young Widow; one day they talked about songs they both liked, and Nelson performed one at the piano.

"What the hell are you doing pounding a typewriter? ... You should be singing," said Russell.

Nelson would later work for Russell as a vocal coach.

After Nelson's death, Russell said that she "had a high, clear voice, with such intonation and shading! Her lyrics were sung with such understanding that you felt you'd heard a poem sung."

After leaving Nick Arden's, Nelson continued to work day jobs, while singing sporadically.

In 1949 she performed at the Café Gala, a cabaret on Hollywood's Sunset Strip; singer-pianist Bobby Short entertained.

She was best known for her appearances in 1950s cabarets, where she sang soprano.

In January 1950, Nelson moved to New York; soon after she was performing on one of the Blue Angel's four-act bills.

In 1951 Nelson would also appear at the New York lounge Celeste, accompanied by songwriter and pianist Bart Howard, who soon became the emcee at the Blue Angel.

At Celeste, Nelson performed many of the songs (including "In Other Words," later retitled "Fly Me to the Moon") that she would gather on her album Let Me Love You: Portia Nelson Sings the Songs of Bart Howard.

She championed Howard for the rest of her career.

The singer had made an auspicious recorded debut with the album Love Songs for a Late Evening, released in 1953 by Columbia's Masterworks division, normally reserved for classical artists.

The New Yorker reviewer Rogers Whitaker wrote in his liner notes: "One has only to hear the delicate phrasing and effortless command of melody to understand why she could immediately create such a stir."

Nelson was also a frequent participant in a series of recorded re-creations of classic musicals, produced by Columbia president and producer Goddard Lieberson.

The singer was heard on Roberta, The Boys from Syracuse, On Your Toes, and Oklahoma! A recording of Noël Coward's Bitter Sweet, which featured Nelson and singer Robert Rounseville, remains unissued; according to Nelson, its release was nixed by Coward, who disapproved of it.

In 1954, Nelson originated the role of Miss Minerva Oliver in The Golden Apple, John Latouche's musical adaptation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

The Golden Apple opened off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre, then moved to Broadway's Alvin Theatre, where it ran from April through August.

In 1955, she contributed material to the Broadway review Almost Crazy, which lasted just 16 performances.

She continued to sing at the Blue Angel and other cabarets, including New York's Bon Soir and Downstairs at the Upstairs, the Colony in London, and Bricktop's in Rome.

She would sing there on and off until 1959, sharing rosters with Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Imogene Coca, Orson Bean, Wally Cox, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Mathis, and other budding stars.

Nelson sometimes performed in the front lounge, where her accompanist was William Roy, a young pianist and composer who was just beginning a fifty-year career as a musical director for many of cabaret's greatest performers.

In 1959, she began hosting her own musical radio show, Sunday in New York, produced by Allen Ludden.

Her cabaret career, like the scene itself, was starting to wane, and in 1960 Nelson moved to Los Angeles.

There she maintained a dual career as a writer of special musical material (for Carol Burnett, Debbie Reynolds, Marlene Dietrich, Julie Andrews, and others) and as vocal coach to such actors as Rod Steiger.

She also became an actress who specialized, inadvertently, in roles of nuns.

In 1965, she portrayed the cantankerous Sister Berthe in the film version of The Sound of Music; she also had a minor role as Sarah in the musical Doctor Dolittle; on TV's All My Children Nelson played the long-running role of nanny Mrs. Gurney.

Her book of poetic musings, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery, became a mainstay of twelve-step programs.

In The Sound of Music (1965), Nelson played Sister Berthe, who saved the von Trapp family in pre-World War II Austria by sabotaging a Nazi car.

Nelson uttered the memorable line, "Reverend Mother, I have sinned."

The next year she appeared as Sister Elizabeth in the film comedy The Trouble with Angels.

In 1967 Nelson appeared as Sister Benedict on the TV western The Big Valley in the episode titled "Days of Grace."

She appeared in the movie Doctor Dolittle and worked as consulting producer and writer for the 1969 TV special, Debbie Reynolds and the Sound of Children.

Recalled Short in his 1995 autobiography Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer: "Portia walked onto the floor of the Gala, tall, poised, goddesslike in floating chiffon – and singing in a way that was all her own. She was a smash."

It was at the Café Gala that Nelson was heard by Herbert Jacoby, the owner (with Max Gordon) of Manhattan's preeminent cabaret, the Blue Angel.

Jacoby invited her to sing there.