The actress, comedian and singer died peacefully in her home in Las Vegas of natural causes, her longtime lawyer
Mimi Hines — the legendary singer, rubber-faced comedian, television star and Broadway performer who famously replaced Barbra Streisand in the original cast of Funny Girl — died on Monday, Oct. 21. She was 91.
Mark Sendroff, Hines’ longtime attorney, confirmed her death in a statement to PEOPLE. She died peacefully in her home in Las Vegas of natural causes, he said.
Born in Vancouver, Canada, on July 17, 1933, Hines showed a knack for comedy at a young age and parlayed that natural talent — and her signature pronounced dimples and toothy grin — into a nightclub act by the time she was 12. But she’d go on to make a name for herself in the industry as part of the duo Ford and Hines, alongside late actor-comic Phil Ford.
The two met in 1952 while working in different nightclubs in Anchorage, Alaska. They started working together when Hines, then 19, subbed for his female partner, who had accidentally broken her ankle. Love soon followed and two years later, in 1954, Hines and Ford wed.
National attention wouldn’t come until 1958, after an appearance on The Tonight Show. There, Hines sang “Till There Was You” from Meredith Willson’s The Music Man and, as the story goes, drove Jack Paar to tears.
From there, the pair was one of the most in-demand acts, appearing on stages across the country and on a sea of variety and talk programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The David Frost Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Garry Moore Show, Pat Boone in Hollywood, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and more.
She was also a go-to for game shows like Password, I’ve Got a Secret, The Hollywood Squares, It’s Your Bet and Snap Judgment. A sitcom pilot titled Mimi was shot in 1964, featuring Hines and Ford as owners of a resort hotel, but it never was picked up.