Winifred Ainslee

Ainslee was born Winifred MacIntosh,[4] the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. F. Bringle McIntosh. He was a Methodist minister who became president of Ohio Northern University.[3] Winifred contracted polio at age 6, but although she was in a leg brace for several years, she made a complete recovery and took up ballet to strengthen the affected leg. She attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College[5] and graduated from Ohio State University in 1947,[6] double-majoring in English and Music.[7] Before she finished college, she worked for a year as a [jazz] singer at the Cotton Club and a staff announcer at a radio station in Joplin, Missouri.[5] She also studied at the Juilliard School.[7] Ainslee took her stage name from Audra Ainslee, her aunt, who was leading lady with James K. Hackett.[8]

In the late 1940s Ainslee was a member of the Chicago cast of Brigadoon.[9] The production toured in other cities, including Oakland[6] and St. Louis.[8] In 1950, Ainslee appeared in all productions of the Summer at Pitt Stadium operetta season in Pittsburgh.[10] She performed with the Chicago Music Theatre and the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera,[11] and she was musical director for touring productions of Brigadoon and Finian's Rainbow.[12] In 1952 she was the female lead in a production of High Button Shoes in Chicago.[5]

Ainslee performed on Broadway in Brigadoon (1950), Seventh Heaven (1955),[13] and Auntie Mame (1958).[14] Off-Broadway productions in which she appeared included What's Up (1953)[15] She toured in Paint Your Wagon,[12] Bus Stop, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.[16]

Ainslee acted on television[5] and was a Conover model.[17] After she stopped performing, she worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey until her retirement in the spring of 1991.[18]

Ainslee married Wells W Jenney on 4 Mar 1944 in Franklin County, Ohio; that marriage was annulled a few months later. After graduation and the start of her acting career, she married fellow Brigadoon actor/singer James Schlader in Chicago on October 23, 1948.[19] She married off-Broadway producer James Preston on March 5, 1959, in South Bend, Indiana.[20] They have a daughter, Heather Lee Preston Buzasi.[18]