I had the good fortune of touring Europe with Jodi and Ray in a production of "My One and Only" back in 1994 for 5 months, this after having seen her in CFY many, many times. She was always gracious, sweet and kind to anyone who talked to her.
She lives in California and has at least one child, named McKinley. She does voiceovers and has been the voice of Barbie for quite some time now, along with her ongoing Disney commitments.
She and Ray did a Troika tour of Joseph back in the 90's and she was pregnant with her first child durring that time. The company manager was a friend and chuckled because she felt bad for Jodi who had morning sickness everywhere, including the tour bus.
When I worked with her in Europe, she and Ray, or Raybo as we called him, would have "Movie Night with the Bensons" in which the whole company would go over to their hotel room and eat popcorn and watch a movie. They also bought everyone opening night telephone cards so we could call home to the U.S. for just about 10 minutes. I would attend a few church services with them right before Sunday night shows and they were two very genuinely nice people.
As for Crazy For You, I was not real thrilled with Jodi's very "hummingbird" vibrato, but I think it had more to do with the vocal teacher she was studying with at the time. I also heard some scuttlebutt regarding her and Karem Ziemba who desparately wanted the role, but I won't go into it.
I have tons of tour photos of her, and many from CFY. One of these days, I'll get around to posting some of them.
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium!"
