Country music superstar Reba McEntire has enjoyed huge commercial and critical success in 1980s and 90s. She proved to be a key figure in the successful crossover of country music into the pop mainstream, and later showed herself a capable character player in features and on TV.

The product of a small-town upbringing in Oklahoma, McEntire competed on the rodeo circuit with her family and sang with her brother and sister as part of the teenaged Singing McEntires until she was signed by Mercury Records in the mid-70s. Achieving success by the end of the decade, she brought her rich, throbbing alto, with its distinctive Midwestern twang, to such country pop tunes as I Can t Even Get the Blues . In the mid-80s McEntire sang several very traditional country songs like How Blue and plush ballads about broken romance including Whoever s in New England and He Broke Your Memory Last Night .

She continued her success into the 90s with her hard-hitting duet with Linda Davis, Does He Love You and other he-done-me-wrong songs like For My Broken Heart.”
With her attractively forthright manner and her trademark voluminous, teased brunette hair, McEntire not only won many music industry awards and produced an impressive string of best-selling albums, but also made music videos and a great many TV variety and award show appearances. As with other country music stars, media visibility and the experience of putting over storytelling songs suggested the possibility of straight acting, and McEntire made her feature debut in the highly enjoyable revamp of 50s monster films, Tremors (1990).

She has subsequently performed smoothly as the extravagant Texan mother candidate in North (1994) and in TV-movies such as The Man from Left Field (1993), opposite Burt Reynolds and as Annie Oakley in Buffalo Girls (CBS, 1995). The latter proved a nice warm-up for her 2001 Broadway debut as Annie Oakley in the hit revival of Irving Berlin s Annie Get Your Gun.” McEntire received glowing notices not only for her beautifully singing but also for her deft comic timing and chemistry with leading man Brent Barrett.