LINDHE, VIN (ca. 1907–1986). Vin Lindhe, multitalented musician, was born in Chicago around 1907 and grew up in a Swedish neighborhood there. As a child she showed a talent for music, especially piano playing. She earned a spot as a staff pianist for a Chicago radio station while a young woman and then joined a girls' trio and traveled the country on the theater circuit singing, playing, and arranging music.
In 1927 the trio visited Dallas to play the Majestic. While doing a promotion for the trio's show on WFAA radio, Lindhe was asked by the station to become staff pianist. She accepted and became a well–known radio personality in Dallas. At WFAA's studios at the Baker Hotel she played the piano and acted in several character roles on featured programs; she later said she "did everything but sweep the studio" for WFAA. During this same time, she did some acting and directing with the Dallas Little Theater and some occasional orchestra conducting at the Palace.
While playing the piano for a soloist at a local Rotary Club meeting she was noticed by S. A. "Roxy" Rothafel, who hired her in the 1930s, after she had moved to New York City, to work at Radio City Music Hall. In New York, Lindhe served as assistant conductor to Erno Rapee, the original music director at Radio City. She was also in charge of the men's vocal ensemble and prepared scripts for a weekly opera, as well as assisting Rapee with broadcasts he did for General Motors from Carnegie Hall. During World War II she moved to Cleveland, where she hosted her own radio show.
In 1949 she moved back to Dallas and returned to work for WFAA. She also worked as stage director for the new Dallas Lyric Theater and began playing at the Old Warsaw Restaurant, where, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she delighted Dallas diners with her classical and popular performances on the grand piano. She died at her home in Dallas on November 3, 1986, and was eulogized at services in All Saints Episcopal Church. She was buried in Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas. She apparently was briefly married but had no survivors.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dallas Morning News, September 21, 1969, November 4, 1986.
