By Bill Trott
(Reuters) – Mitzi Gaynor, whose singing and dancing brightened Hollywood musicals throughout the 1950s, including trying unsuccessfully to “wash that man right outa my hair” as nurse Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific,” has died at the age of 93.
Gaynor died peacefully of natural causes, her management team said on Thursday.
“For eight decades she entertained audiences in films, on television and on the stage… Off stage she was a vibrant and extraordinary woman, a caring and loyal friend, and a warm, gracious, very funny and altogether glorious human being,” they wrote on X.
Gaynor had prominent roles in “There’s No Business Like Show Business” in 1954 with Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe and in the 1957 films “Les Girls” with Gene Kelly and the “The Joker Is Wild” with Frank Sinatra. The previous year she starred with Bing Crosby and Donald O’Connor in “Anything Goes,” singing Cole Porter’s title song.
Gaynor’s movie career lasted a little more than a decade but she went on to success as a nightclub performer and put on a series of annual television variety specials in the 1960s and 1970s. She was still performing an autobiographical stage show – a mix of singing, dancing and remembrances titled “Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins” – in her 80s.
Gaynor was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago. Her mother was a dancer and her father a violinist and musical director. After a move to California she became part of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, adding three years to her age to make the company believe she was 16. Executives from 20th Century Fox spotted her and offered her a contract.
Actor George Jessel told her that her last name brought to mind a delicatessen or the Gerber baby food company and she followed his suggestion to change it to Gaynor.
NO LACK OF ENERGY
Her first film was the Betty Grable-Dan Dailey musical “My Blue Heaven” in 1950 and she would go on to make nearly 20 movies that called for a singer or dancer with lots of energy.
Gaynor, discussing her enthusiasm for performing, once said, “If there were four people waiting for the streetcar, I’d put on an entire act.”
Pianist Oscar Levant, watching Gaynor dance on the set of “The I Don’t Care Girl,” said of her: “There’s nothing wrong with being an exhibitionist – if you’ve got something to exhibit.”
As her career was building, Gaynor dated industrialist-studio chief Howard Hughes.
“He was dashing, handsome, rich, mysterious,” she said. “I fell madly in love with him. There were airplanes, a whirlwind courtship and, after five months, he proposed.”
She broke it off and instead married Jack Bean, who would become her manager and only husband.
Gaynor’s Hollywood highlight was the film version of Richard Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1949 stage musical “South Pacific,” which had won 10 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The 1958 movie had been long awaited and Gaynor was cast in the prized role that Mary Martin had played on Broadway.
She played Nellie Forbush, a naive young nurse from Arkansas stationed in the Pacific during World War Two who falls in love with Emile De Becque, a French expatriate planter played by Rossano Brazzi. Nellie turns down De Becque’s marriage proposal because he has two mixed-race children but when he goes missing during a Navy-backed mission against the Japanese, Nellie realizes her racial prejudice is misguided and grows to love the children.
The film was not a critical success but still was one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Gaynor’s performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
The movie soundtrack was brimming with songs that became popular standards, such as “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Bali Ha’i,” “There Is Nothing Like a Dame,” “I’m in Love With a Wonderful Guy” and “Younger Than Springtime.” Gaynor singing the bouncy “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” on the beach was one of the film’s standout scenes as her character tried to get over De Becque.
With the era of Hollywood musicals fading, Gaynor’s last screen role was “For Love or Money,” which paired her with Kirk Douglas, in 1963.
She then concentrated on live stage shows and became a regular performer in the big Las Vegas resorts. She also staged frequent television variety specials, starting in 1967, with titles such as “Mitzi … A Tribute to the American Housewife,” “Mitzi … And a Hundred Guys” and “Mitzi … What’s Hot, What’s Not.”
She also appeared as a performer at the Academy Awards several times, notably singing the theme song from “Georgy Girl” at the 1967 ceremony when it won an Oscar for best original song.
It was during her Las Vegas run that Gaynor teamed up with a young Bob Mackie and helped him start his career as a costumer with a flair for rhinestones, sequins, beads, feathers and tassels. Mackie also created the gowns she wore on her television specials.
Gaynor and Bean, who were married for 52 years until his 2006 death, had no children.
(Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Rosalba O’Brien)
