Opera Singer. A lyric soprano, she followed her time on the operatic stages with a successful career as a nightclub singer. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Vivian won a radio singing contest at 16, attended the Chicago Musical College, became a regular on "The American Album of Family Music", "The Standard Hour", and other radio shows of the day, and made her Chicago Civic Opera debut in 1936 as Mimi in Puccini's "La Boheme". She sang the staple roles of the repertoire including Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust", Micaela from Bizet's "Carmen", Donna Elvira of Mozart's "Don Giovanni", and Adina in Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'amore", as well as some more unusual fare such as Eudoxie of Jacques Halevy's "La Juive", and Giselda in the world premiere of Italo Montemezzi's "L'Incantesimo". Her New York City Opera debut came in 1947 in the heavier role of Maddalena from Giordano's "Andrea Chenier". Vivian sang in San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Havana, while in New Orleans she was Mistress Ford in a production of Verdi's "Falstaff" that was to be the first opera ever televised; she had two noted appearances with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, in a 1943 performance Brahams' "Ein deutsches Requiem" which is available on CD, and in Verdi's "Inno delle Nazioni". During the 1950s she transformed herself into a nightclub and cabaret singer with her first name sometimes rendered "Vivienne", headlining for many years in Las Vegas and other major venues of both coasts, as well as on the "Ed Sullivan Show", and the "Milton Berle Show". For a time in the 1960s she was a TV hostess in Cincinnati. After her retirement in the 1980s she did charity work and worked as a voice teacher; Vivian lived for a number of years on Long Island and died of the complications of advanced age. A portion of her recorded legacy remains available.