Joan Hume McCracken (December 31, 1917 – November 1, 1961) was an American dancer and actress who became famous for her role as Sylvie ("The Girl Who Falls Down") in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!

She also was noted for her performances in the Broadway shows Bloomer Girl (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945) and Dance Me a Song (1950), and the films Hollywood Canteen (1945) and Good News (1947).

McCracken was generous in promoting the careers of other dancers, including Shirley MacLaine, and was a strong influence on her second husband, Bob Fosse, encouraging him to become a choreographer.

She was noted for unconventional behavior and was one of a number of real-life counterparts to inspire the character of Holly Golightly in her friend Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Her husband and brother were both serving in the military, and she disliked the film's patronizing tone, which treated servicemen as naive bumpkins who are starstruck by the movie stars they encounter.

McCracken also was dismayed by the unprofessionalism she witnessed at Warner Brothers, and the lack of guidance she received from the choreographer, LeRoy Prinz.

[9] She subsequently starred in Billion Dollar Baby, which opened on Broadway in December 1945, winning positive reviews for her performance.

[10] After Billion Dollar Baby, she was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in the 1947 college musical Good News, starring June Allyson and Peter Lawford.

[11] Reviewing Good News for The Nation, critic and novelist James Agee wrote that McCracken "makes me think of a libidinous peanut.

"[12] In her study of the Hollywood studios' star-making process, The Star Machine, film historian Jeanine Basinger compared Debbie Reynolds with McCracken.

"[14] She long yearned to become a serious actress, and in 1947 she began studying acting with Bobby Lewis, Group Theatre alumnus, who would soon co-found the Actors Studio with Elia Kazan and Cheryl Crawford.

Her acting in the non-dancing role was praised by critics, with Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times calling it an "inventive performance of real quality.

She appeared in the 1950 musical comedy Dance Me a Song, which turned out to be a flop, though it was choreographed by Agnes de Mille, who had won acclaim for Oklahoma!

She played a young woman seeking to escape from her marriage to a homicidal thief, in a pawnshop owned by Dowling's character.

The play was not a musical, and was different from the subsequent version starring Mary Martin a few years later, but had five songs by Leonard Bernstein.

[23] Despite favorable reviews of her performances in The Big Knife and Peter Pan, her worsening health and the failure of her most recent Broadway plays took a toll on her career.

[24] Although she appeared on television and in dramatic roles, her career petered out in the late 1950s, as complications from her diabetes made it increasingly difficult for her to work.

They married in 1939 and separated after Dunphy's service during World War II, during which McCracken had an affair with French composer Rudi Revil.

[27] McCracken met dancer-choreographer Bob Fosse while both were appearing in the 1950 Broadway musical Dance Me a Song, in which she had a starring role and he was a specialty dancer.

[30] Later in life, she was in a relationship with actor Marc Adams, and spent many of her final years at a beach house in what was then an isolated section of The Pines on Fire Island, New York.

[32] McCracken was known for her pixieish stage and screen persona, and for what The New York Times described as her "overnight" success as a comic dancer in Oklahoma!

Shirley MacLaine said that McCracken had "a sense of 'in your face' comedy years before it was fashionable ... and she possessed a generosity about other people's talent.

While playing in Bloomer Girl in October 1944, she received a War Department telegram telling her of the death of her brother, Buddy McCracken, a month earlier during particularly vicious combat on the Pacific island of Peleliu.

Golightly is shown singing songs from Oklahoma!, accompanying herself on a guitar, and owning The Baseball Guide, which was edited by McCracken's uncle James Isaminger.

[2] In Bob Fosse's autobiographical film All That Jazz (1979), the character of Angelique, a death angel, is played by Jessica Lange.