Robert Solly, sales executive and co-founder of theater

When Robert E. Solly was preparing for his role as Henry Higgins in a community theater production of

My Fair Lady,

he found it difficult to remember all his lines.

So, wife Barbara said, "I would paste them everywhere. On the visor of the car. On the mirror in the bathroom."

And so, when the Music Theater of Abington production opened in 1971, it might well have been, as one of its songs said, "Loverly."

On Wednesday, Oct. 5, Mr. Solly, 93, of Williamstown, a former sales executive for a chemical firm in Camden, died at the Samaritan Healthcare and Hospice Center in Mount Holly.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Solly graduated from Abington High School in 1941 and served as an Army infantryman in Belgium and Germany during World War II.

Mr. Solly earned a bachelor's in business administration at Temple University in 1948, though he had begun as a music student there in 1941.

But, his wife said, "he liked to eat three meals a day, and he thought that he would not be able to do that if he continued in music."

So after his 1948 graduation, she said, "he joined his father's company," Harley Soap Co. in Philadelphia, "a maker of commercial chemicals" for heavy-duty floor cleaning in hotels and offices.

But he found a way to continue his musical interests.

In 1950, she said, he was a founder of the Music Theater of Abington.

Bruce Weir, a 1943 graduate of Abington High, was one of 15 Abington High grads who joined with Mr. Solly to form the theater group.

And for more than 20 years, many of those grads formed the casts of its performances, on Fridays and Saturdays once a year, at Abington High School.

"He was the star of many of the shows, a very strong baritone," said Weir from his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

"He and I were good friends," Weir said. "He was wonderful at a party."

Mr. Solly became president of his father's firm in 1954 and headed the company into the 1960s, when he sold it to the Concord Chemical Co. in Camden and moved the firm there, his wife said.

He retired as a Concord executive, his wife said.

Over the years, Mr. Solly became a church singer, too.

He was a soloist at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, and a member of choirs at Presbyterian churches in Cherry Hill and Haddonfield.

Besides his wife, Mr. Solly is survived by sons Robert C. and Michael, daughter Amy Engelhart, four grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter. He was predeceased by his former wife, Elizabeth.

A visitation was set from 10 to 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the First Presbyterian Church of Haddonfield, 20 Kings Highway E., before an 11 a.m. memorial service there. Interment is to be private.

Donations may be sent to the Development Department of the Children's Home Society of New Jersey, 635 S. Clinton Ave., Trenton, N.J. 08611.

Condolences may be offered to the family at kainmurphy.com.

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