Mimi Hines, Comedian, Singer and Streisand’s Funny Girl Replacement, Dies at 91

Mimi Hines, the Canadian actress, singer and comedian who replaced Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, has died. Her death by natural causes, at her home in Las Vegas, was announced by her longtime attorney Mark Sendroff. She was 91.

Hines was born on July 17, 1933 in Canada, to a theatrical family. She was just 12 years old when she started playing nightclubs, lying about her age to do so.

She met Phil Ford at the Last Chance Saloon in Anchorage, AK, in 1952. Soon, the pair were traveling around the country as a musical-comedy duo in nightclubs and on television variety shows.

In December 1965, Hines replaced Streisand in Funny Girl in the role of Fanny Brice, making her Broadway debut. She was not nervous about filling the shoes of the immensely popular Streisand. “It’s always easier to follow a good actor than a bad one,” she told The New York Times. Ford also joined the show as Eddie Ryan, Brice’s mentor. The couple divorced in 1972.

Following Funny Girl, Hines starred in national tours of I Do! I Do! and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, as well as productions of Anything Goes and The Pajama Game. She returned to Broadway one final time in the ‘90s as Miss Lynch in Grease.

In 2007, Hines played Hattie Walker in the Encores! presentation of Follies, bringing the house down with her performance of “Broadway Baby.”