OKLAHOMA!'s Barbara Lawrence Passes Away at 83

TMZ is reporting that movie star Barbara Lawrence, known for her portrayal of 'Gertie Cummings' in the 1955 movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical OKLAHOMA!, passed away from kidney failure on November 13, 2013. She was 83.

Read the original report here.

Lawrence's character in OKLAHOMA! -- Gertie -- is a local farm girl fond of the musical's main male love interest Curly McLain. OKLAHOMA! is the first musical written by Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II and is set in rural Oklahoma in 1906. The story follows Curly and his romance with Laurey Williams. The original Broadway production opened in 1943 and ran for 2,212 performances, followed by national tours, revivals and international productions.

Lawrence, who boasts a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, also appeared on the big screen in Margie, Captain from Castile, You Were Meant for Me, Give My Regards to Broadway, The Street with No Name, Unfaithfully Yours, A Letter to Three Wives, Mother Is a Freshman, Thieves' Highway and Peggy - all between 1946 and 1950.

In the following years, she starred in the features Two Tickets to Broadway, Here Come the Nelsons, The Star, Arena, Paris Model, Jesse James vs. the Daltons, Her Twelve Men, Oklahoma!, Man with the Gun, Kronos, Joe Dakota and Man in the Shadow.

On the small screen, Lawrence made appearances in Four Star Playhouse, Cheyenne, Cimarron City, Trackdown, Riverboat, Tightrope, Shotgun Slade, The Man from Blackhawk, Bat Masterson, Bonanza, The Best of the Post, Perry Mason and more.

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