Sheila Bond, the actress and dancer who won a Tony Award in 1953 for her performance in the Josh Logan musical Wish You Were Here, which featured a swimming pool built into the stage, has died. She was 90.
Bond died March 25, a few days after her birthday at her home in Manhattan, her niece, Sheri Smith, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Bond also played Judy Holliday’s sister in George Cukor’s The Marrying Kind (1952), appeared on Broadway opposite Sid Caesar in 1948’s Make Mine Manhattan and stepped in as Lola for Gwen Verdon in the original 1955-57 staging of Damn Yankees.
The native New Yorker received the Tony for best featured actress in a musical for starring as Fay Fromkin in Wish You Were Here, with music and lyrics from Harold Rome.
Revolving around attractive single people in swimsuits at Camp Karefree in the Catskills, Wish You Were Here was famous for the $15,000 pool (complete with diving board!) that was sunk into the center of the stage at the Imperial Theatre in a never-before-seen stunt. The musical ran for nearly 600 performances, and Jack Cassidy and Florence Henderson also were in the cast.
Bond made her Broadway debut as a dancer in 1943 in Artists and Models and starred in 1947’s Street Scene and 1950’s The Live Wire; the latter was written by Garson Kanin, who co-wrote The Marrying Kind.
Survivors also include her children Lori and Brad and five grandchildren.
