Mitzi Gaynor, star of 1950s big-screen musicals including “South Pacific” and “Les Girls” and a series of beloved variety specials in the 1970s, died on Thursday. She was 93.
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Gaynor’s management team, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, confirmed to Variety that she died of natural causes.
“For 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,” Reyes and Rosamonda wrote in a statement on Gaynor’s X account . “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.”
Gaynor starred as Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in the 1958 big-screen adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” together with Rossano Brazzi as French planter Emile De Becque and John Kerr as Lt. Cable. Gaynor sang for herself though many of the others in the cast did not, and as Nellie she performed the famous song “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” which came to be associated with her for the rest of her life.
A year earlier she starred with Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall in the George Cukor-directed musical “Les Girls.”
Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber was born in Chicago. Her mother was a dancer, her father a violinist and cellist. The family moved to Detroit and then, when she was 11, to Los Angeles so she continue studying dance with the same teacher, who had relocated. In 1942, she became a member of the corps de ballet at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera.
Gaynor’s career could be neatly divided into two central portions: the 1950s, during which she starred in a series of movie musicals, the most famous of which were “Les Girls” and “South Pacific”; and a later period in which, as the New York Times said, “Her brassy effervescence and inexhaustible stamina as a leggy dancer outfitted in Bob Mackie splendor found their ultimate outlet in a groundbreaking series of television specials broadcast from 1967 to 1978.”
Gaynor was “never a vocal powerhouse,” said the Times, “yet her singing conveyed enough verve and personality for her to carry off a glittering production number.”
When she was young, the attractive, blonde Gaynor combined innocence and a certain knowing naughtiness.
Gaynor made her feature debut in 1950’s “My Blue Heaven,” starring Dan Dailey and Betty Grable. By the next year she had her first starring role in the musical “Golden Girl,” in which she played the real-life Civil War-era entertainer Lotta Crabtree. She was part of the ensemble cast of 1952’s “We’re Not Married!” along with Marilyn Monroe and Zsa Zsa Gabor; the same year she starred in the musicals “Bloodhounds of Broadway,” based on stories by Damon Runyon and set among gangsters in the 1920s.
Gaynor appeared in the musicals “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1954) with Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor and Marilyn Monroe, and “Anything Goes” (1956) with Bing Crosby and O’Connor.
She had a supporting role in the Frank Sinatra vehicle “The Joker Is Wild” in 1957 (though significantly, she was second-credited after Sinatra despite relatively few minutes in the film).
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After “South Pacific,” Gaynor appeared in only three more movies: romantic comedy “Happy Anniversary,” with David Niven; the Stanley Donen-directed comedy “Surprise Package,” in which the actress starred with Yul Brynner and Noel Coward; and, in 1963, the comedy “For Love or Money” with Kirk Douglas.
But it was not Gaynor’s film career that was waning so much as the era of the movie musical. “Les Girls” was the last musical that Gene Kelly would do for MGM, home to many of Hollywood’s finest musicals over the previous three decades.
The actress, dancer and singer began appearing on variety shows such as “The Frank Sinatra Show,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Dick Clark Show”; the first special of her own was an episode of “The Kraft Music Hall” series entitled “Mitzi Gaynor Christmas Show” in 1967. She issued stand-alone specials in 1968 (guests were George Hamilton and Phil Harris), 1969 (Ross Martin) and 1973 (Ken Berry, Dan Dailey and Mike Connors). In 1974 came “Mitzi… A Tribute to the American Housewife,” which also starred Ted Knight, Jerry Orbach, Jane Withers, Cliff Norton and Suzanne Pleshette; the next year there was “Mitzi and a Hundred Guys,” which featured Jack Albertson, Michael Landon and many other celebrities; 1976 saw “Mitzi… Roarin’ in the 20’s,” with Carl Reiner and Ken Berry (which won an Emmy for Bob Mackie’s costume designs); next was “Mitzi… Zings Into Spring” (1977), with Roy Clark and Wayne Rogers; and finally there was 1978’s “Mitzi… What’s Hot, What’s Not,” which featured Gavin MacLeod, John McCook and Benny Goodman. In total, the nine specials drew 16 Emmy nominations.
Gaynor also remained in the public eye by performing at awards shows. At the 1967 Academy Awards, she sang the theme from “Georgy Girl” and danced to rousing applause.
Gaynor recorded two albums for Verve, “Mitzi” and “Mitzi Gaynor Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin,” and she appeared regularly in Las Vegas and at nightclubs throughout the U.S. and Canada.
From 2008 to 2011, Gaynor toured on and off with her show “Mitzi … Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins,” in which she reminisced about her glamorous life, including an encounter with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and experiences with the like of Howard Hughes, Gene Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and her “There’s No Business Like Show Business” co-star Ethel Merman, who, Gaynor said, told the dirtiest joke she ever heard.
The New York Times was a bit skeptical in 2010, saying the “mixed-media autobiography she brought to Feinstein’s might be described as a dishy, campy meet-the-star opportunity.”
On July 30, 2008, Gaynor, along with Shirley MacLaine and a variety of others, participated in the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ “TV Moves Live,” a celebration of six decades of dance on television.
Also in 2008, the documentary “Mitzi Gaynor Razzle Dazzle: The Special Years,” which reviewed her variety-show years, aired on PBS.
Gaynor was married to agent and producer Jack Bean from 1954 until his death in 2006.
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