Jane Sperry Connell (pronounced con-NELL, née Bennett; October 27, 1925 – September 22, 2013)[1] was an American actress and singer.

[3] Connell began her career with her husband Gordon, entertaining in San Francisco night clubs such as The Purple Onion and the Hungry I.

Eventually the couple moved to New York City, where Connell made her Off-Broadway debut in the 1955 revival of The Threepenny Opera, a long-running hit at the Theatre de Lys.

She recreated the role in the 1974 screen adaptation after Lucille Ball, the film's star, became dissatisfied with Madeline Kahn, who originally had been signed to play Gooch.

[5] Only four-foot-eleven, Connell was described as a master of the large comic gesture in The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, which described her as "a tiny woman with a giant, squeaking voice".

(1965); Dear World (1969), once again supporting Angela Lansbury; the short-lived 1983 revival of Mame, in which Lansbury reprised her 1966 lead role; Lend Me a Tenor (1989); Crazy for You (1992); and Moon Over Buffalo (1995), starring Carol Burnett; The Full Monty (2000), succeeding Kathleen Freeman, who died during her run in the show, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2001).