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After her razzle dazzle show on PBS, and the release of her DVD, she
is back with that sparkling smile, and fun, traveling all over the
United States showing the 'kids' how it is done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFKdSzktJLE
Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago, Illinois.
She trained as a ballerina as a child
and began her
career as a chorus dancer. She sang, acted and danced in a number of
film musicals, often
paired with some of the biggest male musical stars.
Notable early roles included There's
No Business
Like Show BusinessIrving Berlin's
music and also starred Ethel Merman, Dan
Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor,
and
Johnnie
Ray. (1954) which featured
She also appeared in Les
Girls (1957, directed by George Cukor) with Gene
Kelly and Kay Kendall, and the
remake of Anything
Goes (1956), co-starring
Bing
Crosby, Donald O'Connor,
and
Zizi Jeanmaire,
loosely based on the musical by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy
Bolton.
Gaynor's biggest international fame came from her starring role as
Ensign
Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers and
Hammerstein's South
Pacific, one of the most financially successful musicals of all time, although it was largely
panned by critics. For her performance, she was nominated for a Golden Globe
Award for best actress.
She made films with many other well-known stars, including Ginger
Rogers, Frank Sinatra, David
Niven, Dan Dailey, Betty
Grable and Oscar Levant. 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 Noel Coward.
The film had a theme song by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn.
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 Gaynor starred in
nine
acclaimed television specials that garnered 16 Emmy nominations. As an
interesting historical footnote, Gaynor 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 also recorded two albums for the Verve label, one called Mitzi and the second called Mitzi Gaynor Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin.
It
is estimated that she 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, Mitzi Gaynor was a top attraction in Las Vegas
and at
nightclub and concert venues throughout the United States and Canada.[neutrality is disputed] 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, most notably securing her the lead
role in
South Pacific, even over the character's creator on Broadway, Mary
Martin.
On July 30, 2008, Mitzi, 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 & Sciences TV Moves Live, a
celebration of 60 years of dance on television. Gaynor appeared
performing the
final few bars of Poor Papa (with her original dancers Alton Ruff
and
Randy Doney), a song-and-dance number from her 1969 TV spectacular, Mitzi's
2nd Special.
On November 18, 2008, City Lights Pictures in Association with Green
Isle
Inc. released Mitzi Gaynor Razzle Dazzle: The Special Years, a
new
documentary celebrating Miss Gaynor's annual television specials of the
1960s
and '70s. The film, which was broadcast on public television and
released on
DVD, includes showstopping 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 is working on her one-woman show, Razzle Dazzle: My Life
Behind the
Sequins, which toured the United States and Canada throughout 2009.
