James Monroe Connor

JIM CONNOR - Broadway Singer

The songs have ended for Broadway singer Jim Connor. He was 90.

James Monroe Connor, son of Jean Walter Connor and Ruth Ann Schoonover Connor, of Wichita, Kansas, died on August 12, 2025 in Tucson, Arizona.

Jim attended North High School and the University of Wichita. He edited the school newspaper and was active in music and drama. He was a member of Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity.

Starting serious musical training when he was thirteen, Jim always knew his career would be musical theater. His strong tenor voice was heard in recitals and performances while in high school in Wichita. In 1954 he auditioned and was hired for the chorus of the Starlight Theatre, a professional summer theater in Kansas City, Missouri. There he became a member of Actors Equity. His professional debut was in Call Me Madam. He worked at the Starlight for four summers while attending college.

At the University of Iowa, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree, his vocal and musical technique grew under the tutelage of voice professor Thomas Muir. He sang the leading tenor role in The Creation under the baton of Maestro Dimitri Mitropolous.

New York and the Broadway stage had always been his dream. After appearing at Radio City Music Hall and in the Chrysler Industrial Show, Rodgers and Hammerstein hired Jim for the first New York revival of The King and I as the understudy to ‘’Lun Tha’’. Next came My Fair Lady where he sang ‘’On the Street Where You Live’’ on tour at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago and later in the New York revival. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the British musical Pickwick, the Las Vegas company of Hello, Dolly! with Betty Grable, Mame with Celeste Holm on tour and Ann Miller on Broadway, and 1776 followed. Jim also appeared in regional productions of Pal Joey, The Most Happy Fella, South Pacific, and Oklahoma! and at the Waldorf-Astoria and the Ed Sullivan Show.

After twenty years on stage, Jim then had a successful career in publishing as editor and sub rights director at several major firms including W.W. Norton and The Free Press. His published work "Tops in Taps" celebrated the career of his friend Ann Miller, and he edited Jane Russell’s autobiography. While at PaperJacks, he appeared in the London revue, Pendamonium, in conjunction with the London Book Fair. He then became editor of the award-winning regional magazine, Apprise, published by PBS affiliate WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Retiring to Florida, Jim continued working in both the Indian River County and Brevard County Library systems.

He was preceded in death by his life partner of 62 years, Broadway dancer Richard Gingrich, and sisters Barbara Foos and Joanne Barr.

He is survived by sister, Susan Dobis and brother-in-law, James Dobis and several nieces and nephews.

Donations in his name can be made to Actors Equity Broadway Care.