Actress Peggy Hewett, who made her name on Broadway in a Margaret Dumont-like role in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, died at her Southampton, NY, home March 1 according to The New York Times. The actress was 56 and had battled leukemia. Ms. Hewett had only a chorus credit in the 1969 musical Jimmy when she was chosen to play Mrs. Pavlenko, the rich widow in the Tommy Tune-helmed and choreographed musical, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. The one-act musical revue (A Day in Hollywood) matched with a one-act Marx Brothers spoof loosely based on Anton Chekhov's The Bear (A Night in the Ukraine) garnered Hewett a Drama Desk Award nomination. She sang, danced and played sax in Act One, a salute to movies, as well.

A successful songstress, Ms. Hewett also starred in the cabaret revue, To the Happiness of Us All, and the musical, Olympus on My Mind. She made her professional debut at the St. Louis Municipal Opera and served as an artist in residence at the White Oaks Theatre in California and the St. Paul Opera in Minnesota. Her operatic credits include principal soloist with the American Bach Society and the Musica Sacra of New York City, leading roles with the Bel Canto Opera in "Dialogues De Carmelites," "Lakme," "Babette" and (coincidentally, considering the source material of A Night in the Ukraine) William Walton's opera of Chekhov's The Bear.

Ms. Hewett is survived by mother Sarah Hewett, brother Barton Hewett and companion Bonnie Goebert.

— by Ernio Hernandez