Mitzi Gaynor

Mitzi Gaynor

Mitzi Gaynor, c. 1954
Born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber
(1931-09-04) September 4, 1931
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation Actress, dancer, entertainer
Years active 1949–present
Spouse(s) Jack Bean (married 1954–2006)
Website www.missmitzigaynor.com

Mitzi Gaynor (born September 4, 1931) is an American actress, singer, and dancer.

Early life and education

Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director.[1][2][3] After her father remarried, she became step-sister to anti-war activist Donald W. Duncan.[4]

Her family first moved to Elgin, Illinois,[5] then to Detroit, and later when she was eleven, on to Hollywood. She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 13, she was singing and dancing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera company. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School, and signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox at age 17. She sang, acted, and danced in a number of film musicals, often paired with some of the biggest male musical stars of the day. A Fox Studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a delicatessen, and they came up with a name that used the same initials.[1]

Career

Notable films included There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), which featured Irving Berlin's music and also starred Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray; and South Pacific, the 1958 motion picture adaptation of the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

She married Jack Bean, a talent agent and public relations executive for MCA, in San Francisco, California, on November 18, 1954. They resided on North Arden Drive in Beverly Hills, California.[6] She had just been released from Twentieth Century-Fox (before the start of There's No Business Like Show Business) with four years left on her contract and decided with the time off to get married. The union was childless. After their marriage, Bean quit MCA and started his own real estate business and managed Gaynor's career.[1][7][8][9]

Mitzi Gaynor from the trailer for There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

In 1956, the remake of Anything Goes, co-starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, and Zizi Jeanmaire, loosely based on the musical by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. In 1957, she also appeared in Les Girls, directed by George Cukor, with Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall.

Her biggest international fame came from her starring role as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. For her performance, she was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe Award. She made her last film to date in the early 1960s. One of her last films was the United Kingdom production Surprise Package (1960), a musical comedy thriller directed by Stanley Donen. Her co-stars were Yul Brynner and Noël Coward. The film had a theme song by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn [10][11]

Following her film work, Gaynor remained a popular favorite. She often performed songs at Academy Awards ceremonies. At the 1967 Oscar telecast, she sang the theme from the film Georgy Girl. Gaynor later added the number to her concert repertoire. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, she starred in nine acclaimed television specials that garnered 16 Emmy nominations. As an interesting historical footnote, she appeared between two sets by The Beatles when they made their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show of February 16, 1964. She performed for an unprecedented nine-minute segment from the stage of the Deauville Hotel, in Miami Beach, separated with one commercial break. She sang "Too Darn Hot" and a blues medley. Gaynor recorded two albums for the Verve label, one called Mitzi and the second called Mitzi Gaynor Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin. She is thought to have earned more from the record royalties on the South Pacific soundtrack album than her salary for the movie. She also recorded the title song from her film, Happy Anniversary for the Top Rank label. For several decades, Gaynor appeared regularly in Las Vegas and at nightclub and concert venues throughout the United States and Canada.

During the 1990s, Gaynor also became a featured columnist for the influential newsmagazine The Hollywood Reporter. During her nightclub years, Gaynor rehearsed and broke in her night club routines at The Cave, a popular night club in Vancouver. She developed an affinity for the city and was much appreciated by both the local media and the viewing public, frequently making guest appearances on local television for interviews. "Mitzi's back in town" became an annual slogan when Gaynor would come to the city for a number of weeks each year to break in her Las Vegas routines. On December 4, 2006, Jack Bean, Gaynor's husband of 52 years, died of pneumonia in the couple's Beverly Hills home, aged 84. A producer and personal manager, Bean guided Gaynor's career.

On July 30, 2008, Gaynor, along with Kenny Ortega, Elizabeth Berkley, Shirley MacLaine, and cast members from High School Musical, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, and a host of others, participated in the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences TV Moves Live, a celebration of 60 years of dance on television. Gaynor appeared performing the final few bars of "Poor Papa", a song-and-dance number from her 1969 TV spectacular, Mitzi's 2nd Special. Four months later, on November 18, City Lights Pictures released Mitzi Gaynor Razzle Dazzle: The Special Years, a new documentary celebrating Gaynor's annual television specials of the '60s and '70s. The film, which was broadcast on public television and released on DVD, includes show-stopping moments from the original specials (digitally remastered in 5.1 stereo) along with newly taped interviews with Gaynor colleagues, friends, and admirers, including Bob Mackie, Carl Reiner, Kristin Chenoweth, Rex Reed, Tony Charmoli, Alton Ruff, Randy Doney, and Kelli O'Hara. Gaynor's one-woman show, Razzle Dazzle: My Life Behind the Sequins, toured the United States and Vancouver, from 2009 thru 2014, including an acclaimed 2 week engagement in NYC.

Honors

On April 18, 2010, Gaynor won the 2010 NATAS Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Program/Special for her public television musical documentary "Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years".[12]

On April 13, 2010, she was honored with the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th annual Bistro Awards in New York City.[13]

On November 7, 2009, Gaynor was honored with Chapman University's lifetime achievement in the arts award during the 28th annual American celebration gala night at Chapman University in Orange, California.[14] On July 10, 2009, she was honored with the Tremaine 2009 entertainer of the year award from the Joe Tremaine dance competition nationals final gala in Orlando, Florida.[15]

On March 8, 2009, Gaynor was honored with the 2009 Boston Youth Moves lifetime achievement award, presented by Chita Rivera at Swellegance, the Boston Youth Moves annual fundraiser in Boston.[16]

On April 10, 2007, she was honored by the Museum of Television & Radio in Los Angeles with a special evening celebrating her television specials of the 1960s-1970s. The sold-out event, Mitzi Gaynor Razzle-Dazzle!: The Special Years, featured a screening followed by a panel discussion with Gaynor, designer Bob Mackie and director-choreographer Tony Charmoli. In conjunction with the event, the museum also featured a month-long gallery exhibit, Mitzi by Mackie, featuring Bob Mackie's Emmy-winning costumes from her specials along with a selection of costumes from Gaynor's legendary stage shows and concert appearances.

On October 14, 2006, the NY Alumni "adopted" Gaynor as an official "New Yorker" at Beverly Hills High School. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a proclamation paying tribute to her distinguished career as a singer, dancer, actress and writer.[17]

The television specials

On October 14, 1968, Gaynor starred in her first television special, Mitzi. In specials including Mitzi - The First Time and Mitzi ... Zings into Spring she showcased the talents she had first used as a theatrical performer, then in films like There's No Business Like Show Business, Les Girls, and South Pacific, and finally as a cabaret performer.

List of television specials

Filmography

Popular culture

In the The Simpsons episode "All About Lisa" Sideshow Mel takes Lisa Simpson aside when she becomes Krusty the Clown's assistant. He tells her that the key to dealing with Krusty is to always be prepared to cater to his needs—have a cigar at the ready, never directly look him in the eye, and pretend to know who Mitzi Gaynor is if he mentions her – he always does. She then uses this reference when Krusty says Lisa is the best thing since... "Mitzi Gaynor!" Lisa exclaims.[18]

In the film Breakfast on Pluto the protagonist's search for his mother revolves around searching for a Phantom Lady who looks like Gaynor.

In episode 2 of Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, Princess Mitzi Gaynor, played by Connie Booth, is a character in The Tale of Happy Valley.

References

  1. 1 2 3 McManus, Margaret (October 12, 1969), "Presenting Francesca Mitzi", The Milwaukee Journal
  2. ↑ Motion Picture, Macfadden-Bartell, 1952, p. 86
  3. ↑ Daily Boston Globe: 7, January 22, 1955 Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/us/donald-w-duncan-79-ex-green-beret-and-early-critic-of-vietnam-war-is-dead.html?emc=edit_th_20160507&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=22798310&_r=0
  5. ↑ http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130319/news/703199934/
  6. ↑ George Christy, The Beverly Hills Courier, January 9, 2015, p. 6
  7. ↑ Parish, James Robert & Michael R. Pitts (2003), Hollywood Songsters: Singers Who ACT and Actors Who Sing: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, p. 346, ISBN 978-0-415-94333-8
  8. ↑ "Milestones", Time: 70, November 29, 1954
  9. ↑ Johnson, Erskine (August 10, 1957), Warsaw Times-Union: 8 Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ↑ Surprise Package [Title Sequence] (Motion picture). 1960.
  11. ↑ "Surprise Package SoundTrack", IMDB, retrieved January 7, 2014
  12. ↑ BocaRatonTribune.com
  13. ↑ Elli, "Review: 25th Annual Bistro Awards", NiteLifeExchange.com (2010).
  14. ↑ OCRegister.com
  15. ↑ TremaineDance.com
  16. ↑ BostonYouthMoves.org
  17. ↑ LA Style Watch
  18. ↑

External links

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