Early Life and Career
Loudon was born in Boston and raised in Indianapolis and Claremont, New Hampshire. She attended Syracuse University on a drama scholarship but did not graduate, and moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began singing in night clubs, mingling song with ad-libbed comedy patter, and was featured on television on The Perry Como Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.
Loudon made her stage debut in 1962 in The World of Jules Feiffer, a play with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim, under the direction of Mike Nichols. That same year she made her Broadway debut in Nowhere to Go But Up, which ran only two weeks but earned her good reviews and the Theatre World Award. In 1969, The Fig Leaves Are Falling ran for only four performances, although it won her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. She followed this with a revival of Three Men on a Horse directed by George Abbott; Lolita, My Love, which closed out-of-town during its pre-Broadway tryout; and a revival of the Clare Boothe Luce comedy The Women.
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