By Rebecca Feldhaus/AP
Owensboro, KY – Christine Johnson Smith, who originated the role of Nettie Fowler in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel," has died at age 98. Smith died Wednesday at her home in Owensboro. The Messenger-Inquirer reports she was a native of Hopkinsville but moved to Owensboro as a teen and studied in Tennessee at the Nashville Conservatory of Music before moving to New York in 1937. Funeral services were incomplete.