Virginia Bosler

Virginia Bosler was a dancer/actress born September 23, 1926 in Newton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Marjorie (Fairbanks) and John Bosler. She grew up in largely rural areas along the northeast coast, an environment she always preferred. Virginia started dance lessons as a child but gave it up for a few years until her interest was re-ignited as a teenager. She then attended Jacob's Pillow in Becket, Massachusetts for three summers, and was a favorite of Jacob's Pillow founder Ted Shawn. A physics and trigonometry whiz in high school Virginia attended Barnard College in New York for one year on a full scholarship to study physics. It was her first experience in a big city - and she hated it. Accustomed to the quiet of her childhood world, the pace and the noise of The Big Apple took a toll on her nerves. That, and trying to juggle a full course-load in a demanding subject while pursuing her dance studies led Virginia to put the scholarship on hold and dedicate herself to dance. She imposed a deadline on herself - if she didn't have a professional job at the end of twelve months she would return to school. Within eight months she was dancing on Broadway. Agnes de Mille hired Virginia in 1946 for the tour of Bloomer Girl and after a few months summoned her back to New York to audition for a new show de Mille was choreographing. Virginia won the part of Jean in Brigadoon, which turned out to be a career-defining role. Eighteen months on Broadway, a year in the national tour, and she also re-created the character in every New York revival up to, and including the 1962-63 production. Virginia was the only original cast member to be invited to appear in the movie version of Brigadoon (1954). By her tally she played Jean over a thousand times. Virginia stood out in stage productions in the early fifties, especially Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952 (1952-1953), and her association with de Mille continued to pay dividends. In 1954 she was a member of the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre and was included in the movie version of Oklahoma! (1955), followed by a European tour of the play. Various stage and television appearances filled out the fifties and early sixties, until she retired from performing in 1963 to raise a family. In 1956 Virginia had married Hubert A. Doris, a music professor at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York, and they had a son and a daughter. Widowed in 2008, Virginia lived a comfortable retirement until her early nineties in rural Maine - peace and quiet at last. She passed away at the age of ninety three in August of 2020.