Coordinates: 36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E / 36.35944; 43.15278

Nineveh (English pronunciation: /ˈnɪn.ɪv.ə/; Akkadian: Ninwe; Classical Syriac: ܢܸܢܘܵܐ‎; Hebrew: נינוה‎ Nīnewē; Greek: Νινευη Nineuē; Latin: Nineve; Arabic: نينوى‎ Naynuwa; Persian: نینوا‎ Nainavā) was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq.

The origin of the name Nineveh is obscure. Possibly it meant originally the seat of Ishtar, since Nina was one of the Babylonian names of that goddess. The ideogram means "house or place of fish," and was perhaps due to popular etymology (comp. Aramaic "nuna," denoting "fish").

Ancient Nineveh's mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within a 7 km² (1732 acres) area circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.

Joan Diener (February 24, 1930 – May 13, 2006) was an American theatre actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diener majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence College and moonlighted as an actress while still a student. She made her Broadway debut in the 1948 revue Small Wonder, choreographed by Gower Champion and co-starring Tom Ewell, Alice Pearce and Jack Cassidy.

Diener met her future husband, theatre director Albert Marre, when she won the role of Lalume, the seductive wife of the Wazir, in Kismet,^[when?] winning a Theatre World Award for her performance. They were married three years later and subsequently had a son Adam and a daughter Jennifer.

In 1958, Marre directed a production of At the Grand, a musical adaptation of Vicki Baum's 1930 novel Grand Hotel, in Los Angeles with Diener as an opera diva (a ballerina in the book) who falls in love with a charming, but larcenous, faux baron. (Although the show never reached Broadway, it was revamped drastically more than thirty years later and, directed by Tommy Tune, became the hit Grand Hotel.)

Dolores Gray (June 7, 1924 – June 26, 2002) was an American stage and film actress. During her successful music career, she sang Marilyn Monroe's part on the Decca records soundtrack album of There's No Business Like Show Business (1954).

Born as Dolores Stein to Barbara Gray and Henry Stein^{[citation needed]} in Chicago, Dolores Gray was briefly signed with MGM, appearing in Kismet (1955) and It's Always Fair Weather(1955).

Among her many stage roles, she appeared in Two on the Aisle (1951), Carnival In Flanders (1953); Destry Rides Again (1959); Sherry! (1967); and 42nd Street (1986). She also performed the lead role in Annie Get Your Gun in its first London production (1947).

Gray earned the Tony Award for her role in Carnival in Flanders even though this Broadway musical, with a script by Preston Sturges, ran for only six performances. She therefore holds a record that is unlikely to be broken: briefest run in a performance which still earned a Tony.^{[citation needed]}

She was best known for her theatre roles. She recalled once "What a gift that would be to have more of a permanent record. A stage performance is just that, then it's lost. When I see movies on TV, I think, 'How great to have that.' But why look back? The decisions I made, I made. I can't change that."^{[citation needed]}