MITZI GAYNOR
(4 September 1931 - 17 October 2024)
The American actress, singer and dancer Mitzi Gaynor, who has died from natural causes aged 93, was a popular musical star in the 1950s. She will always be remembered for one particular role, that of Ensign Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's stage musical South Pacific. She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber to father Henry, a violinist, and mother Pauline, a dancer. They were of Hungarian descent and lived in Chicago. Her father remarried so that young Francesca became stepsister to soldier and activist Donald W. Duncan. The family moved to Elgin in Illinois, then Detroit and later to Hollywood where the budding performer trained as a dancer. She sang and danced with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, and was only 17 when she gained a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and also acquired her professional name of Mitzi Gaynor. She appeared in the choruses of Fox musicals until she was given her first proper role in My Blue Heaven (1950) alongside stars Betty Grable and Dan Dailey.
Mitzi continued to make films throughout the 1950s but her first starring part was as American entertainer Lotta Crabtree in Golden Girl, a moderate success. The 1952-1953 Film Review annual named Mitzi a Rising Star and profiled her alongside a British rising star (Joan Collins) in an article titled A Star is Born. She was the lead in Bloodhounds of Broadway which reaped millions and then played singer Eva Tanguay in The I Don't Care Girl which also was a great success and led her to play a South Sea island girl in Down Among the Sheltering Palms. However, her most popular film at this time was There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) with songs by Irving Berlin and an all-star cast of Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Johnnie Ray and Marilyn Monroe. It was a story of a vaudeville team and their offspring who join the act but then tire of performing and seek other careers and new relationships. The film had a mixed reception and was not a box-office success even with that cast and Berlin numbers such as 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', 'Puttin' on the Ritz', 'A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody' and 'Heat Wave'. The great title number became a theatrical anthem. Mitzi Gaynor was particularly good as a relatively new face in films.
Mitzi Gaynor in the 1954-1955 Film Review annual.
Her next film was a remake of Cole Porter's Anything Goes with Bing Crosby, Donald O' Connor and Zizi Jeanmaire. Gaynor gets to sing 'You're the Top' with Crosby, 'It's De-Lovely' with O'Connor, and the title song, although the result bore little resemblance to the 1936 film. The Birds and the Bees was a remake of The Lady Eve, with George Gobel and David Niven, while The Joker is Wild, a biopic of entertainer Joe E. Lewis played by Frank Sinatra, had Gaynor as his wife. Then came George Cukor's Les Girls starring Gene Kelly with Gaynor, Kay Kendall and Taina Elg as the titular females in a story about a former cabaret act's revelations when one of the girls writes her memoirs. Even Cukor and Cole Porter couldn't make it a success.
However, success came in spades for Mitzi Gaynor with the filming of South Pacific. Joshua Logan had directed the stage production and, apart from some distracting colour filters, the film looked grand on the wide screen and Rodgers & Hammerstein's score was already a classic. With songs such as 'A Cock-Eyed Optimist', 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair' and 'I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy', how could she go wrong? She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film was a big hit, playing for years before its general release. At the London Dominion it ran for nearly five years. Mitzi Gaynor appeared in other film musicals but none ever bettered Rodgers & Hammerstein's masterpiece.
After that success Gaynor made only three more films but concentrated on her stage, cabaret and television career. She had married talent agent Jack Bean in 1954 and he eventually became her manager. She developed a nightclub act for Las Vegas, Miami and Vancouver, and she also made concert tours acoss the country. On TV from 1967 she had a series of musical specials with themes such as Mitzi ... and a Hundred Guys, Mitzi... Zings into Spring, Mitzi... a Tribute to the American Housewife and Mitzi...What's Hot, What's Not etc. Gaynor was given many accolades and has a star on the Hollywood Hall of Fame. She lived with husband Jack Bean in Beverly Hills until his death in 2006. They had no children.
MICHAEL DARVELL