Before she was the matriarch of a family of pop singers including a son who once successfully negotiated a record contract in a treehouse in
The Partridge Family; before she was a River City librarian wooed by a con man attempting to unload a bunch of children's band uniforms by warning the small town citizenry about trouble that starts with a T and rhymes with P and that spells pool in
The Music Man; before she was an Academy Award-winning prostitute who uses a bunch of incriminating photos to exact revenge on a religious huckster who once jilted her in
Elmer Gantry; before she was a farm girl who falls for a juvenile delinquent played by Pat Boone (WTF?) in
April Love; before she was a mill worker widowed by a carnival barker who sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" while home on a 24-hour leave from Heaven in
Carousel; and before becoming the center of a frontier love triangle that leaves one man dead but has everyone else singing about what a beautiful morning it is in
Oklahoma, Shirley Jones was Miss Pittsburgh of 1952.
Well, you didn't think she got her start playing for the Steelers, did you?
