ABSTRACT
Little Orphan Annie made her debut in a 1924 newspaper comic by the artist Harold Gray, who continued to draw her until his death in 1968. The song in the first scene of the John Huston-directed film Annie, and the young actress, Aileen Quinn, is the envy of every girl watching, either during the film's original 1982 theatrical run or in its long life in various formats for home consumption. The redemptive power of the adorable street urchin, and all her complicated lessons about how to look at a performing girl, continues to be wonderfully resilient and adaptable as Annie is passed down as a heroine for new generations of girls. The 'girl with the voice of an angel' and the 'little girl with the great big voice' are thus versions of these archetypes, assigned to the little girl on stage, and they confirm many class prejudices. Indeed child singers actually represent class groups in fairly ways through voice type.
