"It is with extreme heartache, that I have to announce the passing of an original Industry Pioneer, Legend and Icon," her publicist B Harlan Boll said in a statement. "It is so very hard to see the final curtain lower on a woman who has been a daily part of my life for more than a third of it."
The platinum-blonde actress with a beaming smile lured crowds to Broadway for over five decades since she first dazzled critics in 1949 as gold-digger Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
She finally broke free of that career-dominating role in 1964, when she starred as the matchmaker in "Hello, Dolly.