Mitzi Gaynor, the midcentury Hollywood star who appeared in the movie musicals \u201cSouth Pacific,\u201d \u201cLes Girls\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s No Business Like Show Business,\u201d died Thursday. She was 93.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted to her official X account, Gaynor\u2019s management team, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, said she \u201cpassed away peacefully today of natural causes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor eight decades she entertained audiences in films, on television and on the stage. She truly enjoyed every moment of her professional career and the great privilege of being an entertainer,\u201d Reyes and Rosamonda said. \u201cOff stage, she was a vibrant and extraordinary woman, a caring and loyal friend, and a warm, gracious, very funny and altogether glorious human being. And she could cook too!\u201d
\nGaynor, they said, often noted that her audiences were \u201cthe sunshine of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The actor, singer and dancer took up dancing at age 8, beginning with ballet and tap lessons and later performing with the L.A. Civic Light Opera in her early teens. She danced in her 20s when filming 1958\u2019s \u201cSouth Pacific,\u201d in which she played Ensign Nellie Forbush in Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s musical. She also won the hearts of audiences in the 1950s films \u201cAnything Goes\u201d with Bing Crosby and \u201cThe Joker Is Wild\u201d with Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n
Later in her career, she endeared herself to younger audiences in many TV specials. She also had a hefty career onstage, notably starring in her annual \u201cMitzi Gaynor Show\u201d doing stand-up comedy in which she delivered her bits in dialects, one of which she attributed to her father, a cellist born in Hungary. She also appeared in the national tour of \u201cAnything Goes\u201d from 1980 to 1990.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d her team said.
\nGaynor, whose birth name was Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber, was born Sept. 4, 1931, in Chicago to a cellist father and ballroom dancer mother who supported their daughter\u2019s interest in the performing arts early on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was 9 years old, my mother and auntie took me to see Carmen Miranda in the stage revue \u2018The Streets of Paris.\u2019 I was mesmerized!\u201d she told Closer earlier this year. \u201cI remember telling my mother, \u2018I can do that. I want to do that.\u2019 From that moment on, everything became about making \u2018Tootie\u2019 \u2014 my childhood nickname \u2014 a star.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later, Gaynor\u2019s family relocated to Hollywood, and at 17, the trained ballerina was signed to a seven-year deal at 20th Century Fox. A studio executive persuaded her to change her name, because he said it sounded like a delicatessen, she told CBS in 2019.
\n\u201cHe said, \u2018How about Gaynor, [like] Janet Gaynor?\u2019 My father loved it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gaynor made her film debut in a supporting role in the musical \u201cMy Blue Heaven\u201d (1950) alongside Betty Grable. The newcomer was enamored with her famous co-star.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would follow her into the john if she had to go to the bathroom,\u201d she said in 2012.<\/p>\n
Soon after that, Fox gave Gaynor her first starring role in \u201cGolden Girl\u201d (1951). Appearances rapidly followed in \u201cBloodhounds of Broadway\u201d (1952); \u201cDown Among the Sheltering Palms\u201d (1953); and \u201cThere\u2019s No Business Like Show Business\u201d (1954), featuring Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe.
\nAlso in 1954, Gaynor married her agent, Jack Bean, who then quit his job at MCA to start a publicity firm. Bean was Gaynor\u2019s husband and manager for more than 50 years until he died in 2006. The couple never had children.<\/p>\n
In 1960, two years after Gaynor\u2019s Golden Globe-nominated performance in \u201cSouth Pacific,\u201d Gaynor and Bean bought their Spanish-style villa in Beverly Hills, where they frequently entertained guests. That year, Gaynor also was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Later, her several television specials were nominated for 17 Emmy awards, winning six.)<\/p>\n
Toward the end of her career, Gaynor reinvented herself, touring nightclubs around the United States. She made her Manhattan nightclub debut in 2010, at the age of 78, in her show \u201cRazzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Known for her glitzy costumes, Gaynor reminisced about the \u201clost art\u201d of dressing in a 1993 interview with The Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t handle grunge. I can\u2019t handle the chic of it. Dressing is really becoming a lost art while being real has become popular,\u201d she said. \u201cBut for those of us living during the \u201950s and \u201960s, dressing up was real. All of those things \u2014 the lashes, the heels, the glamour \u2014 they were real to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she became renowned designer Bob Mackie\u2019s first client when she met him during that time. Upon their introduction, Gaynor mistook the young visionary for a fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Oh my God, you\u2019re 13 years old!\u201d Gaynor said, adding that she \u201cjust about fainted\u201d the first time she saw his sketches. Mackie went on to design almost 500 costumes for the film star turned Vegas showgirl.<\/p>\n
Last year, Gaynor celebrated her 92nd birthday, thanking her fans for their longtime support on social media.<\/p>\n
Quoting \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain\u201d producer Arthur Freed, she wrote: \u201cWhy am I smiling and why do I sing? Why does December seem sunny as spring? Why do I get up each morning and start? Happy and head up with joy in my heart\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because of all of you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mitzi Gaynor, the midcentury Hollywood star who appeared in the movie musicals \u201cSouth Pacific,\u201d \u201cLes Girls\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s No Business Like Show Business,\u201d died Thursday. She was 93. In a statement posted to her official X account, Gaynor\u2019s management team, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, said she \u201cpassed away peacefully today of natural causes.\u201d \u201cFor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memorial"],"yoast_head":"\n