Mary Cleere Haran is relaxing in her suite at The Carlyle, the New York hotel where Bobby Short enthralled an elegant clientele for more than three decades by singing the melodies of Cole Porter and Duke Ellington.

Mary Cleere Haran performs at the Pittsburgh Renaissance Hotel Friday. Mary Cleere Haran Where: Renaissance Hotel, Downtown. When: 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets: $46; 412-394-3353. Related article: New life for the Cabaret scene

Haran, a fan of movies from the 1930s and 1940s, feels at home in this gilded uptown refuge with its fresh flowers, large mirrors and uniformed elevator operators.

"It's very Fred and Ginger here," said Haran, who has sung in New York cabarets for 18 years.

Haran, who last performed in Pittsburgh at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in 1995, sings for two shows at The Riverview Series on Friday in The Renaissance Hotel's second floor Symphony Room. She will be accompanied on piano by Kenny Asher, a songwriter and arranger.

Memories of certain movies help her interpret songs. When Haran sings, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," she thinks of Judy Garland, who sang the tune in a 1946 film called "The Harvey Girls."

"In general, my heroines, my idols, were all the screwball comedy actresses like Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy and Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur. They were smart. They were funny. They were warm. They liked men. They wore great clothes," Haran said.

Richard Rauh, a Point Park University professor who underwrote the salaries of the five performers appearing in this year's Riverview Series, admires Haran's interpretations.

"She's very insightful. She does her research. She understands the people she is singing about. She injects wonderful witty comments," Rauh said, recalling a performance Haran gave at The Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room in Manhattan, where she sang an evening of music from the 1930s, including an Alice Faye tune he had never heard.

Haran's musical influences include Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart, Dorothy Fields, who worked on composing the music for "Swing Time" with Jerome Kern, and Harry Warren, who wrote lots of music for big bands but never became a household name.

"I'm really partial to lyricists," Haran said, partly because she was an English major at San Francisco State before moving on to join the original cast of "Beach Blanket Babylon," a show still playing in San Francisco.

At age 19, Haran was living in her native San Francisco when the spotlight operator at the Venetian Room in the Fairmont Hotel allowed her to watch Peggy Lee rehearse.

"I was knocked OUT by her. She was not only a great singer and sort of a mesmerizing person. Her shows were always splendid. They had full orchestrations. She wore white chiffon. I was so enchanted by it. I was so charmed by her. I vowed right then and there I was going to do this," Haran recalled.

After doing lots of research in the library, Haran realized that successful singers started out by working with bands. She sang with a swing band that toured the West Coast, then headed for New York, where she played in a Broadway production of "The 1940s Radio Hour."

"I had two lovely songs and a beautiful dress. Then I started. I didn't want to do Broadway. I wanted to sing in clubs."

Haran acknowledges that cabaret music is "definitely an acquired taste. But the songs are so great. To hear that music live, in this very civilized, genteel setting, can be very appealing. There is an intimacy to it."