Johnny Fae Nelson George: Pioneering Houston Theatre Founder and Actress (1924–1970)

Johnny Fae Nelson George, actress and founder of Houston’s Theatre, Inc., daughter of John Randolph Nelson and Willie Lee (Martin) Nelson, was born in Purley, Franklin County, Texas, on November 24, 1924. The 1940 census recorded the family in nearby Winnsboro in Wood County, where Johnny’s father owned a grocery store and she completed high school. That same year she attended Baylor University, where she studied in Paul Baker’s drama program and was active in the theater. She was also a member of Sigma Tau Delta, Beta Pi Theta, and Alpha Psi Omega. She graduated from Baylor in 1943 and subsequently did post-graduate studies under a fellowship at Smith College with director Hallie Flanagan. She toured with a dance company in Europe and, in Paris, directed a play before returning to New York, where she studied theater at various schools, including with Elia Kazan, and worked as a model. Eventually, she came to Houston to work with Nina Vance in the formative days of the Alley Theatre. 

On December 30, 1949, Johnny Nelson married college sweetheart Lorraine Malcom George, a Houston contractor and entrepreneur, who was also active at the Alley as a set designer and volunteer. In 1950, in addition to performing, Johnny George directed an early Alley production of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke which Williams traveled to Houston to view and commend. By 1953 Johnny and Lorraine George had leased the building of the defunct Houston Little Theatre on Chelsea Boulevard. Encouraged by the success of Vivien Altfeld’s Houston Lyric Theatre productions of 1949 and those of Virginia Plunkett with the Summertime Light Opera in 1951, Johnny’s dream was to present musical theater productions on the proscenium stage. 

Her training as a dancer and choreographer made her want to do musical theater utilizing local talent and resources. Her new non-profit, all-volunteer enterprise was named Theater, Incorporated. Local arts critic Ann Holmes later reflected, “Theatre, Inc….was a fireball. Its productions were big, brassy, successful.” During its lifetime from 1953 to 1966, Theatre, Inc. produced more than fifty musicals, including Carousel, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and others. In the process, Johnny George mentored an estimated 175 actors who advanced to professional careers, including Tommy Tune, Jaclyn Smith, and author Tommy Thompson.  Theatre, Inc. was the first regional theater in the nation to receive rights to perform Oklahoma.  Oscar Hammerstein came for the production and was so pleased that he reduced the royalties for the rest of the run. George was “larger than life,” and her productions were lavish and full of talent. 

In the 1960s her health began to decline, and in September 1966 Theatre, Inc. suffered a devastating fire. The loss to the city was enormous. The dream of rebuilding what was lost was clouded by her deteriorating health. On July 31, 1970, at the age of forty-five, Johnny Nelson George died of cancer at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston. She was buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in that city. Her legacy is reflected in the careers of her former Theatre, Inc. performers and Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars, founded by her protégé Frank Young. Houston Post arts critic Hubert Roussel wrote after her death, “Johnny’s productions were frequently beautiful in ways strictly their own…they added poetic graces and evocations that were not in the fundamental material…but grew out of her own fertile imagination and theatrical taste.” In her memory, Lorraine George established the Johnny George Directing Scholarship at the Dallas Theater Center.