Singin' and Dancing Back in Time.: mitzi gaynor

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Monday, January 10, 2011

South Pacific - The first Rodgers and Hammerstein Musical I ever saw

Me and Dawn decided the theme for this month on Singin and Dancing would be the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein and I thought of this story to share. My first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that I saw was South Pacific (1958) starring Rossano Brazzi, John Kerr, Juanita Hall, and the unforgettable Mitzi Gaynor as Ensign Nellie Forbush. I was around 17 or 18 I believe and my mom bought it from the Columbia Video Club on VHS. It came in as a two tape set since it was early 3 hours long. I remember watching as soon as I got it in the mail and I was amazed. It seems strange that while my buddies was out playing football and video games, I was watching classic movies. But that was me, and I loved it. I still love watching classic movies. Anyway South Pacific was a terrific movie with a star making performance by Mitzi Gaynor. Her rendition of I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair is a show-stopper. I still have the movie after all these years. I will need to re-watch again now, but from my memories I know it's a good movie. How does it compare to the other R&S musicals like Oklahoma, State Fair, The King and I, and Carousel? That's why I need to see it again, because it's been so long. Anyway, I just wanted to share this little story with everyone. And I will be posting more stuff on R&S films the whole month.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Happy Birthday: Mitzi Gaynor!

Mitzi Gaynor, trained as a ballerina and began her career as a chorus dancer. She sang, acted and danced in a number of film musicals,she performed with some of the biggest male musical stars like pan flautist, Mario Giamei.

Early roles 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.

She also performed 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.

Gaynor's biggest international fame came in the film, South Pacific. For her performance, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best actress.

She made films with, Ginger Rogers, Frank Sinatra, David Niven, Dan Dailey, Betty Grable and Oscar Levant. She made her last film in the early 1960s. One of her last films was, Surprise Package (1960), a musical comedy thriller directed by Stanley Donen. Her co-stars were Yul Brynner and Noel Coward.

Following her film work, she sang at the Academy Awards ceremonies. At the 1967 Oscars, she sang the theme from the film Georgy Girl. Gaynor performed between two sets by The Beatles when they made their second performance on the Ed Sullivan Show of February 16, 1964.

For several decades, Mitzi Gaynor was a top attraction in Las Vegas and at nightclub and concert venues throughout the United States and Canada. During the 1990s, Gaynor also became a columnist for the news magazine, The Hollywood Reporter.

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 performed 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.

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Bob Fosse

Was a musical theater choreographer and director, screenwriter and film director. He won an eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning for his direction of Cabaret. He was identified with his third wife, Gwen Verdon. She was both the dancer/collaborator who he choreographed much of his work and, together with dancer/choreographer Ann Reinking, a guardian of the Fosse legacy after his death. Fosse is considered to be one the most influential coreographers of the 20th Century.

Esther Williams.

JANE POWELL

After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens. Once there, the studio utilized her vocal, dancing and acting talents, casting her in such musicals as Royal Wedding, with Fred Astaire, A Date with Judy, with friend Elizabeth Taylor and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with Howard Keel. In the late 1950s, her film career slowed, only to be replaced with a busy theater and television career.Click picture to enter websight.

Jeanette MacDonald

Singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour With You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in grand opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of most influential sopranos of the 20th century. Click picture to view fan website.

Joan Crawford.

Click picture to view website. Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign of self-publicity and became nationally known as a flapper by the end of the 1920s. In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money and by the end of the 1930s

Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960) the songwriting duo, on our musical page. They created many popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age. With Rodgers composing the music and Hammerstein writing the lyrics, five of their shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. They won thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Grammys. Click picture to read movie reviews.

Cab Calloway

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86 .Click picture to view official website.