Benay Venuta (January 27, 1911 - September 1, 1995) was an American actress, singer and dancer.

Born Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco, Venuta attended finishing school in Geneva and lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the States. She made her first screen appearance in the silent Trail of '98 in 1928. She also appeared in Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Mister, and Bullets Over Broadway.

Venuta made her Broadway debut when she replaced Ethel Merman in the lead role of Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter's Anything Goes in 1935. The two remained close friends and co-starred in a revival of Annie Get Your Gun in 1966. Additional Broadway credits included By Jupiter (1942), Hazel Flagg (1953), and Romantic Comedy (1979). In 1958, she was cast as private eye Bertha Cool in a television pilot for a series to be called Cool and Lam, based on the novels by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A. A. Fair, but the pilot remains the only episode in existence.

Venuta's summer stock and regional theatre credits included A Little Night Music, Bus Stop, Gypsy, Come Blow Your Horn, Auntie Mame, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Little Me, and Pal Joey.

The exceedingly musical Benay Venuta was born on January 27, 1911, as Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco, California. Attending finishing school in Geneva, she subsequently dropped out and headed off to London. Her career in show business began as a teenage dancer in 1925. Returning to the States a few years later, she made her stage debut in "The Big Parade" in 1928, with nightclubs and vaudeville also a vital part of her early experience. Following a role in the musical revue "Tip Toes" (1929), the flashy blonde performer appeared ready for bigger things. Her Broadway career began quite auspiciously when, a complete unknown at the time, she replaced the irrepressible Ethel Merman in Cole Porter's huge hit "Anything Goes" in 1935. They were big and boisterous shoes to fill but Benay filled them well and was a great success. She and Merman became lifelong friends as well. With the dye cast, Benay followed it with equally flashy roles in lesser Broadway musicals such as "Orchids Preferred" (1937), Kiss the Boys Goodbye" (1938), "By Jupiter" (1942), "Hazel Flagg" (1953), and "Copper and Brass" (1957). She maintained a steady income in between by touring and playing summer stock in a mixture of singing and straight-acting roles. Credits included "Dear Me, the Sky Is Falling," "Little Me," "A Little Night Music," "Bus Stop," "Gypsy," "Come Blow Your Horn," "Auntie Mame," "Light Up the Sky," "Carousel," "Pal Joey," "Come Back, Little Sheba" and "The Prisoner of Second Avenue." In 1966, Benay performed in the revival of "Annie Get Your Gun" with good friend Merman at Lincoln Center playing the role of Dolly Tate. She had earlier played the same role in the MGM film version of Annie Get Your Gun (1950) with Betty Hutton (I) in the Annie Oakley role. As for films, the slender-framed blonde made her debut in Trail of '98, The (1928) while still a teen, but appeared very erratically thereafter -- mostly in supports. Her better known movies include the "B" film noir programmers Repeat Performance (1947) and I, Jane Doe (1948), and the Fox musical Call Me Mister (1951) in which she joined stars Betty Grable, Danny Thomas (I) and Dan Dailey in the song "Love Is Back in Business." Dropping out of show business, she came back from time to time in the 1970s. Thrice married and divorced, Benay's last husband was character actor Fred Clark (I). They split up in 1962. She had two children, Pat and Debbie, from her second marriage to film producer Armand Deutsch (I)' . Her highly artistic tendencies also included sculpting and commercial design. Suffering from lung cancer, Benay died at her home in Manhattan, New York City on September 1, 1995, at age 84.