Mitzi Gaynor, Showbiz Dynamo and Star of ‘South Pacific,’ Dies at 93
The singer, dancer and actress was a movie-musical legend, Las Vegas headliner and centerpiece of annual TV specials.
She was not on the list.
Mitzi Gaynor, the leggy entertainer whose saucy vitality and blond beauty graced the big screen in South Pacific and on Las Vegas stages and in spectacular TV specials, has died. She was 93.
Gaynor, who received top billing over The Beatles on The Ed
Sullivan Show on Feb. 16, 1964, and was famed costume designer Bob Mackie‘s
first celebrity client, died Oct. 17 in Los Angeles of natural causes, her team
announced in a statement.
“As we celebrate her legacy, we offer our thanks to her friends and fans and the countless audiences she entertained throughout her long life,” Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda of Gaynor’s MGMT team said in a statement shared on the entertainer’s X (formerly known as Twitter.)
“Your love, support and appreciation meant so very much to
her and was a sustaining gift in her life. She often noted that her audiences
were ‘the sunshine of my life.’ You truly were. We take great comfort in the
fact that her creative legacy will endure through her many magical performances
captured on film and video, through her recordings and especially through the
love and support audiences around the world have shared so generously with her
throughout her life and career. Please keep Mitzi in your thoughts and
prayers.”
With her hazel eyes, tight curls and exuberant singing and dancing, the feisty Gaynor stood out in such movies as My Blue Heaven (1950) with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey; in Irving Berlin’s There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), opposite Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe, her eventual successor at 20th Century Fox; and in the Cole Porter MGM musical Les Girls (1957) with Gene Kelly.
Gaynor also starred in Anything Goes (1956) with Bing Crosby
and Donald O’Connor, The Joker Is Wild (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Happy
Anniversary (1959) with David Niven and Patty Duke.
In 1957, Gaynor was involved in a fierce competition to win the role of Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in Joshua Logan’s South Pacific, the long-awaited adaptation of the sensational Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical.
“I was filming The Joker Is Wild with Frank Sinatra and got
the call that I’d be auditioning for Oscar Hammerstein at the Beverly Hills
Hotel ballroom for South Pacific,” she told Michael Phillips of the Chicago
Tribune in 2013. “I did ‘Honey Bun,’ I did ‘A Cockeyed Optimist.’ I did
everything but strip.
“Oscar’s way, way at the other side of the ballroom. Why? I don’t know. But he walked over afterward. … You know when you do good? You feel like, ‘Well, at least I didn’t make a fool of myself.’ Oscar took my hand and said: ‘Thank you very much, Miss Gaynor. You’ve been a wonderful sport.”
She went on to famously sing “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and “Some Enchanted Evening” in the 1958 film, and the exotic World War II-set musical became the third highest-grossing movie ($17.5 million, or $147 million today) of the year. She also was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actress (comedy or musical).
Gaynor made her last noteworthy film appearance in Stanley Donen‘s Surprise Package (1960), a musical comedy that also starred Yul Brenner. With the Hollywood musical fading into obscurity, she retired from the movies after just one more film, the Kirk Douglas-starring For Love or Money (1963). She was in her early 30s.
“I quit films because they quit me,” she said in a 2012
interview for the TV Academy Foundation. “Marilyn Monroe was now the new Alice
Faye/Betty Grable, she was doing the musicals at Fox. I wasn’t going to do My
Fair Lady, and I wasn’t going to [sing] ‘The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of
Screaming’ — there was nothing for me to do.”
Partnered with husband/manager Jack Bean, she smartly trained her sights on Las Vegas. Dressed in glittery Mackie costumes and accompanied by a team of handsome male dancers, she began singing, dancing and telling jokes in Vegas in 1961 and eventually acquired a stake in the Flamingo Hotel.
After what the Catholic Church called a “lascivious”
13-minute performance of her act on the Sullivan show — she was introduced as
“Hollywood’s Mitzi Gaynor!!!” — the Beatles requested her autograph. (During
rehearsals, they also asked to borrow her hair dryer.) They were all on the
show broadcast from a Miami hotel, seen by 70 million viewers; a week earlier,
Sullivan had introduced the Fab Four to America for the first time.
In 1968, Gaynor reportedly was earning $45,000 a week in Vegas. Also that year, she starred on her first TV special, Mitzi, for NBC.
Five years later, she headlined the first of her six annual
specials for CBS, including Mitzi and a Hundred Guys; Mitzi … A Tribute to the
American Housewife; Mitzi … Zings Into Spring; and Mitzi … What’s Hot, What’s
Not.
Gaynor said she regularly was approached to star in a weekly network variety show but refused. “Gene Kelly once told me, ‘Only do event television,'” she said.
After all her years working on TV, she finally won an Emmy
in 2008, for her PBS special Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years.
She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago on Sept. 4, 1931. Her mother was a dancer and her father a cellist, and she took her first dance class at age 8. An only child, she and her parents moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit and finally to L.A. when she was 11, to follow her dance teacher.
At age 13, then known as Mitzi Gerber, she convinced Edwin
Lester, the impresario of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, that she was 16
and landed a role in the musical Song Without Words.
She then danced during a comedy bit in a West Coast production of Jerome Kerns’ Roberta, starring Tom Ewell. That led to gigs in touring productions of The Fortune Teller (Gypsy Lady on Broadway), Song of Norway (as Miss Anders, her first speaking part), Naughty Marietta opposite Susanna Foster and as Katie in 1949’s The Great Waltz.
While in The Great Waltz, she was spotted by a Fox producer,
signed to a contract by studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and had her last name
changed to Gaynor. In My Blue Heaven, she stood out in several send-ups of TV
commercials in the film.
Fox was grooming her to be the next Grable, and in quick succession, she starred in the Jeanne Crain sorority story Take Care of My Little Girl (1951); Golden Girl (1951), set amid the California Gold Rush; the comedy We’re Not Married! (1952) with Monroe; Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952); Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1953); The I Don’t Care Girl (1953); Three Young Texans (1954); and The Birds and the Bees (1956)‚ an RKO remake of The Lady Eve.
On a Danny Thomas TV special in 1966, Gaynor met costume
designer Ray Aghayan, who showed her a series of sketches for outfits he had
designed, and she was impressed. She wanted him for her next show, but he was
busy working with Judy Garland, so Aghayan suggested his partner, Mackie,
instead. That marked the start of a long, fruitful collaboration.
Gaynor often was called upon to perform at the Academy Awards, and she brought down the house with performances of “The Moon Is Blue” (with host O’Connor) in 1954, “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (singing it over and over again when the show was running short) in 1959 and “Georgy Girl” in 1967.
Gaynor said she dated Howard Hughes for about eight months
and broke up with him when she was 19. She said he begged her to marry him but
“found out that he’d asked 400 other girls to marry him, too,” she said. (He
advised her to buy “some dirt” in Las Vegas; she did for $25 an acre and sold
it for “two million bucks,” she told Mo Rocca in October 2019 on CBS Sunday
Morning.)
In September 2022, she received a Legacy Award from the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.
She was married to Bean, who started out as a public
relations executive at MCA, from 1954 until his death in 2006.
In her memory, donations can be made to the Entertainment Community Fund and The Great American Songbook Foundation.
Actress
Kirk Douglas, Mitzi Gaynor, Julie Newmar, and Leslie Parrish in For Love or Money (1963)
For Love or Money
6.2
Kate Brasher
1963
The Children of Lindos
Short
Gabby Rogers
1960
Surprise Package (1960)
Surprise Package
5.6
Gabby Rogers
1960
Happy Anniversary (1959)
Happy Anniversary
5.7
Alice Walters nee Gans
1959
Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific (1958)
South Pacific
6.8
Ensign Nellie Forbush, USN
1958
Les Girls (1957)
Les Girls
6.6
Joanne 'Joy' Henderson
1957
Frank Sinatra, Jeanne Crain, and Mitzi Gaynor in The Joker Is Wild (1957)
The Joker Is Wild
7.0
Martha Stewart
1957
The Birds and the Bees (1956)
The Birds and the Bees
5.3
Jean Harris
1956
Bing Crosby, Mitzi Gaynor, Zizi Jeanmaire, and Donald O'Connor in Anything Goes (1956)
Anything Goes
6.0
Patsy Blair
1956
Marilyn Monroe, Dan Dailey, Mitzi Gaynor, Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray in There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
There's No Business Like Show Business
6.4
Katy Donahue
1954
Jeffrey Hunter, Keefe Brasselle, and Mitzi Gaynor in Three Young Texans (1954)
Three Young Texans
5.7
Rusty Blair
1954
Mitzi Gaynor, Bob Graham, Oscar Levant, and David Wayne in The I Don't Care Girl (1953)
The I Don't Care Girl
6.2
Eva Tanguay
1953
Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952)
Bloodhounds of Broadway
6.0
Emily Ann Stackerlee
1952
Marilyn Monroe, Eve Arden, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ginger Rogers, Paul Douglas, Fred Allen, Eddie Bracken, Louis Calhern, Mitzi Gaynor, Victor Moore, and David Wayne in We're Not Married! (1952)
We're Not Married!
6.4
Patricia 'Patsy' Reynolds Fisher
1952
Gloria DeHaven, Mitzi Gaynor, Jane Greer, William Lundigan, and David Wayne in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1952)
Down Among the Sheltering Palms
5.6
Rozouila
1952
Dennis Day, Mitzi Gaynor, Una Merkel, and Dale Robertson in Golden Girl (1951)
Golden Girl
5.9
Lotta Crabtree
1951
Take Care of My Little Girl (1951)
Take Care of My Little Girl
6.4
Adelaide Swanson
1951
Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in My Blue Heaven (1950)
My Blue Heaven
6.2
Gloria Adams
1950
It's Your Health
Short
Peggy Hendricks, Jim's girlfriend (as Mitzi Gerber)
1949
Soundtrack
Bryony Hannah, Helen George, and Jessica Raine in Call the Midwife (2012)
Call the Midwife
8.6
TV Series
performer: "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" (uncredited)
2013
So You Think You Can Dance Canada (2008)
So You Think You Can Dance Canada
6.0
TV Series
performer: "Let Go"
2010
Bert Newton and Catriona Rowntree in 20 to 1 (2005)
20 to 1
5.8
TV Series
performer: "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair", "A Wonderful Guy" (uncredited)
2010
Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years (2008)
Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years
8.5
Video
performer: "Let Go", "A Wonderful Guy", "Love is Blue" (L'Amour est Bleu), "Mr. Melody", "Married", "I Can Cook, Too", "I Got the Music in Me", "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing", "Dance", "Delovely", "I'm a Woman", "Tango of Dreams", "Me and My Baby", "I'm Hip", "The New Orleans Hop Scop Blues", "Oh My, My", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
2008
Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults (1997)
Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults
7.9
TV Movie
performer: "Anything You Can Do"
1997
Welcome to Woop Woop (1997)
Welcome to Woop Woop
5.7
performer: "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair"
1997
Sally Field in Eye for an Eye (1996)
Eye for an Eye
6.2
performer: "Anything Goes"
1996
Springtime in Greenland (1981)
Springtime in Greenland
6.8
Short
performer: "A Cockeyed Optimist"
1981
That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
That's Entertainment, Part II
7.3
performer: "Les Girls"
1976
The 39th Annual Academy Awards (1967)
The 39th Annual Academy Awards
7.2
TV Special
performer: "Georgy Girl"
1967
Ed Sullivan in The Ed Sullivan Show (1948)
The Ed Sullivan Show
7.9
TV Series
performer: "It's Too Darn Hot", "The More I See You", "The Birth of the Blues", "St. James Infirmary", "When the Saints Go Marching In", "Joshua Fight the Battle of Jericho" (uncredited)
1964
Surprise Package (1960)
Surprise Package
5.6
performer: "Surprise Package"
1960
Happy Anniversary (1959)
Happy Anniversary
5.7
performer: "Happy Anniversary"
1959
Bing Crosby and Dean Martin Present High Hopes (1959)
Bing Crosby and Dean Martin Present High Hopes
9.0
TV Special
performer: "High Hopes", "Talk to Me", "Cheek to Cheek" (uncredited)
1959
The Jack Benny Hour
TV Special
performer: "Mr. Wonderful", "Everybody Loves to Take a Bow" (uncredited)
1959
Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific (1958)
South Pacific
6.8
performer: "A Cockeyed Optimist" (1949), "Twin Soliloquies" (1949), "My Girl Back Home" (1949), "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" (1949), "Some Enchanted Evening (Reprise)" (1949), "A Wonderful Guy" (1949), "Honey Bun" (1949), "Finale Ultimo" (1949) (uncredited)
1958
Les Girls (1957)
Les Girls
6.6
performer: "Les Girls", "Ladies in Waiting", "Why Am I So Gone (About that Gal)?" (uncredited)
1957
The Birds and the Bees (1956)
The Birds and the Bees
5.3
performer: " (The Same Thing Happens With) The Birds And The Bees", "La Parisienne"
1956
Bing Crosby, Mitzi Gaynor, Zizi Jeanmaire, and Donald O'Connor in Anything Goes (1956)
Anything Goes
6.0
performer: "Anything Goes", "You're The Top", "It's De-lovely", "Blow Gabriel Blow"
1956
Marilyn Monroe, Dan Dailey, Mitzi Gaynor, Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray in There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
There's No Business Like Show Business
6.4
performer: "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'", "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Lazy", "A Sailor's Not a Sailor ('Til a Sailor's Been Tattooed)" (uncredited)
1954
Walt Disney Academy Awards: 26th Annual, 1954.
The 26th Annual Academy Awards
6.1
TV Special
performer: "The Moon Is Blue"
1954
Mitzi Gaynor, Bob Graham, Oscar Levant, and David Wayne in The I Don't Care Girl (1953)
The I Don't Care Girl
6.2
performer: "Beale Street Blues", "I Don't Care" (Reprise), "The Johnson Rag", "Pretty Baby", "I Don't Care", "Kiss Me My Honey, Kiss Me", "On the Mississippi", "Little Fugue in G minor, BWV 578" (uncredited)
1953
Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952)
Bloodhounds of Broadway
6.0
performer: "In the Sweet Bye and Bye" (uncredited), "Cindy" (uncredited), "Bye Low", "I've Got a Feelin' You're Foolin'" (uncredited), "Eighty Miles Outside of Atlanta" (uncredited), "I Wish I Knew" (uncredited), "Jack O'Diamonds"
1952
Gloria DeHaven, Mitzi Gaynor, Jane Greer, William Lundigan, and David Wayne in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1952)
Down Among the Sheltering Palms
5.6
performer: "THE DRUM CHANT", "WHAT MAKE DE DIFF'RENCE"
1952
Dennis Day, Mitzi Gaynor, Una Merkel, and Dale Robertson in Golden Girl (1951)
Golden Girl
5.9
performer: "California Moon", "Sunday Morning", " (I Wish I Was in) Dixie's Land", "Kiss Me Quick and Go", "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers", "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (uncredited)
1951
Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in My Blue Heaven (1950)
My Blue Heaven
6.2
performer: "Cosmo Cosmetics", "Live Hard, Work Hard, Love Hard" (uncredited)
1950
