By Mirembe Martina

‘A Sunday Kind of Love singer’, Fran Warren has died.

According tot her spokesman, Warren died of natural causes on her birthday, March 4th at her home in Brookfield, Conn. She was aged 87.

Born Frances Wolfe, Warren was a Bronx, N.Y. native who ventured into singing aged 16 when she went to perform on a chorus line at the Roxy Theater before auditioning with Duke Ellington’s big band. Although she did not join the band, she started singing with bands led by Randy Brooks, Art Mooney, Billy Eckstine, Charlie Barnet and Claude Thornhill after.

She went solo the following in 1948 after the song, ‘A Sunday Kind of Love’ topped the charts and reached No. 3 singing “I Said My Pajamas (and Put On My Pray’rs)” with Tony Martin. Her last chart hit was in 1953 with “It’s Anybody’s Heart.”

She had a supporting role in the 1952 film Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd and co-starred in the musical comedies The Pajama Game and Finian’s Rainbow.

Warren is survived by two daughters, a son-in-law and two nieces.