Zelda Schumann-Heink Wil- murt's cosmopolitan flair came in part from the years she traveled and trained with her verld-famous grandmother.

The Austrian-born Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink was renowned as the world's greatest contralto, singing at the Metropolitan Opera from 1899 to 1932. She criss-crossed the country and the world, hob-nobbing with stars such as Lily Pons, celebrities such as millionaire Charles M. Schwab, and royalty.

Tagging along for five years was Zelda, who studied voice with many teachers, but always under the demanding watch of her "Nona," whose famous accent she would mimic: "Are you verking hard mit the music?"

Music surrounded Zelda from the day she was born in 1914 on a ranch in San Diego County, Calif. After her grandmother's death in 1936, she began appearing in radio, concert, operetta and theater productions. In 1949, she won the Atlas Award as best supporting actress in "Rain" at San Diego's Old Globe Theater.

That's where she met the man she would marry, Arthur R. Wilmurt, a playwright and professor at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) who brought her to Pittsburgh, said her brother, Bruce Vernier of Lago Vista, Texas.

Mrs. Wilmurt, of Shadyside, died after a heart attack Thursday at UPMC Shadyside. She was 90. She retained to the end her dramatic flair, asking a nurse bearing lunch for a couple of martinis.

Mrs. Wilmurt performed here at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and with the Civic Light Opera. She taught drama and speech at the Playhouse, Winchester Thurston School and Our Lady of Mercy Academy.

She also taught cooking, which was another passion, and even had her own WTAE-TV show, "Cooking from A to Zelda." Her dinner parties were lavish, but she made them look effortless. "If I have 40 guests," she said in 1959, "I'd like to have 40 different things to eat."

Regent Square's Penn Hackney, who knew her from childhood, said her invitations were coveted. "Just as with what would work well in a meal, she had an idea of who would work well at a party, and chose that with great care and verve."

She often lectured on "Life with My Grandmother," and she loved to regale people with those stories and to be regaled. Her friends and family adored her as her own legendary character.

"Feisty funny," said Hackney's sister, Aspinwall's Jeanne Kingsland of Mrs. Wilmurt.

In her 80s, Mrs. Wilmurt still held parties at her apartment, and until recently she drove in summer to her beloved "seaside shack" in Provincetown, Mass.

"She was certainly a personality that you don't come across very often," recalled Los Angeles playwright Thom Thomas.

Visitation will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday at John A. Freyvogel Sons, 4900 Centre Ave., followed at 4 p.m. by a memorial service.

Remembrances may be made to the Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA 02657.