Ann Miller

She was basically a tap dancer.

Ya know I was only 13 when I tap-danced with Ginger in Stage Door.

I knew someone who was her dresser when she did stock in Texas and said she was a real cunt.

Over the years, I've heard rumors that she had an affair with L.B. Mayer from many sources.

I do hope that wasn't when she was a 14-year-old contract player, but since her career didn't take off until she was legal probably not.

She owned a Kathrine Baumann jeweled fish purse.

She was a hoarder.

I WAS NAT A HARDER!

She tripped on the sidewalk once and when she went down her hair shattered on the concrete.

Horse pucky! I never tripped in my life!

She was

r7

In the 1970s I was the (quite young) romantic lead in a dinner theater comedy in Santa Barbara, CA. One night, people in the cast were quite excited that Ann Miller was seen in the audience. I had no idea who she was. After the play, she came backstage to talk to the cast, and was particularly pleased to meet me, and I was the only cast member whom she kissed. She was an absolute sweetheart.

In all seriousness, a friend worked with her years ago in Atlanta in a production of Mame (my friend played Mother Burnside). When Miller played Mame on Broadway, they revised the choreography to give her a big tap solo in That's How Young I Feel. Miller played Mame many times after that regionally and in stock and always required they use her tap number.

At any rate, it was a really long, exhausting solo late into the show and Miller wasn't young. My friend watched in amazement night after night as Miller exhausted herself dancing and at the end of the solo tapped backwards into the wings where she collapsed backwards into the arms of an assistant. A second assistant then slapped an oxygen mask over her face as she heaved deeply for almost a minute while the chorus took over the dancing. Then the two assistants physically shoved her upright and onto the stage, where she tapped herself to the front and finished the number.

I posted this once on the BWW forum and several posters replied she had done the same thing with the oxygen tank on Broadway.

My friend really liked Miller. Her usual comment was "Annie was a trouper."

I bought her memoir years ago and it was quite good. She dished discreetly some of the dirt on herself and other Hollywood people. She was A New Age person who believed in reincarnation and believed she had lived before, including in Ancient Egypt where she had been a famous queen. All in all an enjoyable book.

Annie didn't get to MGM and LB Mayer until the late 1940s when she was well into her 20s. She was at RKO when she in her teens and then Columbia for awhile.

She used to go on the Merv Griffin show and would often use a Ouija board. Very much into metaphysical.

Why hasn't there been a biopic about her? Ryan Murphy please do something!!!! Sarah Paulson would be a great Ann Miller!

Better yet: Darren Criss

Soup, snyone?

I read somewhere that Angela would also use an oxygen tank. Go to 23:00.

One of Annie's very best, r9!

Ann Miller died in 2004 at age 80 although there has always been a dispute about her age, which she acknowledged.

Her last movie was "Mulholland Drive" (David Lynch adored her)....what a gal! what a career!

The mother of a friend of mine who was a famous Bel Air socialite was very close with Ann Miller. I met her. She had the worst nosejob I'd ever seen. She often wore a prosthetic for filming to make her nose look more in proportion. Somewhere along the away she had a rich husband because she was basically a contract player yet lived in a big house in the flats of Beverly Hills. She also drove one of the Gucci trimmed Cadillac Sevilles which was amazingly tacky.

A dancing Marie Antoinette?

Who's Ann Muller?

Jealous?

She was never a star. Always a supporting player or second lead.

Ann Miller feuded with her Sugar Babies co-star Ann Jillian, who dared to suggest that a jealous Miller got her part reduced from third lead to head chorus girl. Miller scoffed, "She was never the star of this show. I'M THE STAR!"

Ann Miller was like me only not good

She was something to have put up with Mickey Rooney in a long-running show.

Very nice, but dumb as a box of rocks, according to a choreographer friend of mine who had to put her in Mame.

All the tap tricks displayed real talent (learned early on), but she had to be handheld on how to go from trick A to trick B.

Her "Shakin' The blues Away" number in Easter Parade is iconic. And fun. And silly sexy -- she always came across as a real dame...the one getting dumped by the leading man in favor of the prettier female lead and taking it in stride, and landing on her feet. You knew she could drink her co stars under the table, and she had that hard hair and full figure -- my father, God rest his soul, thought she was a real "classy broad."

Shakin' gif.

Appeared in largely minor and forgotten films which is why I suspect she doesn't have much of a following.

Here ya go, Mac. Complete with her trademark wisecracking 1930s-speak and all. You got it, buster? Now scram!

The star sits down and launches into a defense of her age. “I was 13 when I made Stage Door at RKO with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers in 1937. Ginger found out I was underage and tipped off the studio. My father, who was an attorney, had to forge a birth certificate that made me 18. He even changed my birthplace from Houston to Chireno, Texas—where my mother was born—to throw off the studio. It was the only good thing he ever did for me—but now, I’m paying for that lie. Earl Blackwell put in his Celebrity Register that I was born in 1919—and now everyone thinks I’m 62.”

Thanks R20, that was great fun.

Always liked her brashness.

When I had my accident during rehearsals of our show, they had to have someone doing my numbers. They had to time them—so they gave Ann some of my numbers and gave other girls some of the other specialties I do. But as soon as I recovered, they gave all my numbers back to me—and that’s when Ann went around saying I had taken her part away from her. She was never the star of this show—I’m the STAR—and dumping on me is not very nice.”

Ann is as famous for her “Millerisms” (verbal insanities) as the late Sam Goldwyn was for his “Goldwynisms.” Some sample “Millerisms”: Asked what she was doing for Passover, she reportedly replied, “I don’t do game shows.” On a questionnaire which requested her occupations she printed “STAR.” Recently, they say, she was amazed to discover that Christmas always falls on Christ’s birthday.

“Some of those stories are made up,” she insists, “but some are true. I say things in innocence and they come out funny. Like the time I read that someone was producing a Broadway musical called Ari. I thought it was about Aristotle Onassis, so I called my friend—that big agent, Milton Goldman—and told him that I wanted to play Jackie in that show. After all, I had dark hair like hers. Well, Milton fell on the floor, I think. He couldn’t stop laughing. The story spread all over town and it made the papers.” (Ari, a flop 1971 musical was not about Onassis. It was a musical version of the Leon Uris novel, Exodus.)

I really enjoy her performance of "I'm Still Here" from Sondheim's Follies. Ann was in the cast of the show at Paper Mill Playhouse in Jersey. Personally, I think she was the last of a generation who could think back to the depression of the 30s and understand the lyrics.

I've read that she would routinely screw up the song in performance, but on the recording, sh nails it.

Guesting on The Tonight Show with Joan Rivers in 1984.

I share the same birthday, as well, April 12th.

Others born that day: David Letterman, David Cassidy and Shannen Doherty.

A beam once fell on her head backstage and her wig was credited for sparing her serious injury.

Drag queens used to channel her for the hair, which really did get epic later in her life. She was Lady Bunny before Lady Bunny.

Bravo R10. That is so gay I feel like I was just spit-roasted by Liberace and Shawn Mendes.

Ann Miller was the kind of star we will never see again.

My mother was a tap dancer back in the day. She and her brother danced together and performed around the U.S. She was pretty good and could recognize good dancers. She loved Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly, but whenever she'd see Ann Miller dancing in a movie that was on TV, she'd say, "Oh, there she is again. All she ever did was twirl. Twirl, twirl, twirl!"

I loved her in "Mulholland Drive." At the beginning of the movie, she basically plays a version of herself - an aging Hollywood figure with a heart of gold. Then at the end of the movie, she's the nasty, bitchy mother of an asshole film director.

Prior to Mickey Rooney's death, Ann Miller held the record for being the longest working actor in the industry. Her first movie was in 1934, and her last was in 2001.

I liked it when Molly Shannon and Cheri Oteri did Ann and Debbie Reynolds with their own talk show, "Leg Up!" on Saturday Night Live.

I love this natural look. Especially the eyebrows!

I once worked with this lady who had a friend who was a Vegas show girl. The Vegas show girl was hired to dance in the show Sugar Babies when it came to Vegas. The Vegas show girl said Mikey Rooney was a monster drunk. She said he was one of the nastiest people she ever worked with and ever met. This lady didn't mention anything about Ann Miller. I wonder how Ann Miller handled him.

Can you imagine working with both Ann Miller AND Mickey Rooney? So many of those old-time studio stars became monsters, they were so coddled for years. Then they were let loose upon the world and they couldn't accept that times had changed and they were no longer big stars.

Bump for more Ann Miller stories! The first time I ever saw her in a movie was as a gayling at the age of 11. Kiss Me Kate was on PBS. I will never forget seeing "Too Darn Hot" for the first time. It's one of my favorite movie musical moments of all time.

She believed and was once told by a psychic, Ann was Cleopatra in her previous life. Her bedroom was done in Egyptian furniture and designed like an Egyptian queen's bedroom chamber.

She danced "Shaking the Blues Away" while wearing a back brace. She was wearing it because her husband had pushed her down the stairs, causing her to have a miscarriage. Her lacquered wig may have saved her life when a steel beam fell on her during a stage performance in "Anything Goes."

Does anyone know if Ann Miller was a friend to the gays? did she ever hang in gay bars?

R55, The baby was born stillborn and is buried with Ann.

You gays have all heard the story about how I invented pantyhose, right?

R51 The stories about Mickey Rooney are true. My great uncle was a stage hand and worked at Denver's Elitch Gardens Theatre in the summer months, where they had plays that a lot of the old time stars would appear in. Mickey Rooney did a play there in the 1970s, and my great uncle said he was the nastiest man he'd ever worked with. Rooney was horrible to the other actors, to the director, to the crews.

On the closing night of the play, it was a tradition for the leads to take the rest of the cast and crews out to celebrate. Rooney exited the theatre as soon as the play was over. Everyone was overjoyed, because they could celebrate on their own and tell horror stories about him.

I, too, can't imagine what it was like for Ann MIller to work with him. They seemed to be completely opposite personalities.

She loved cahrn!

1956 WML appearance, publicizing MGM's The Opposite Sex

Ann is quite lovely and tasteful here.

Bonus points: Phil Rizzuto's pillow lips

[quote]Prior to Mickey Rooney's death, Ann Miller held the record for being the longest working actor in the industry. Her first movie was in 1934, and her last was in 2001.

Lillian Gish's career was longer. Her first movie credits were in 1912 and her final move was "The Whales of August" in 1987. That's 75 years.

R62 I believe Ann appeared in more films than Lillian Gish.

R61 Damn, Phil Rizzuto was hot!

R62 Lillian Gish died in 1993. At the time, Ann Miller had the longest career of any LIVING Hollywood actor.

Her nose job wasn’t as bad as Nanette Fabray’s.

J'adore this number from "Hit the Deck." Our Ann shows up around 1:30. But you've also got Debbie, Jane, Russ, Tony, and Vic.

Who’s the big girl in the blue dress r67.

I saw her live in Sugar Babies when I was a kid.

R68, that's Kay Armen (née Armenuhi Manoogian), popular Armenian-American singer of the 1940s.

R47, is your mother named Genevieve by any chance? She may have been my tap teacher for a short while.

She wasn't a nice person for most of her life. She did mellow with age though. She was one of the few people who could get along with Mickey Rooney though, and he was a total cunt.

But she wasn't a legitimate soprano.

You know, a lot of these people dropped out of school in their pre-teen years to go to Hollywood and become stars. I read her book when I was a kid, but I seem to remember that her mother was deaf (right?) and was fleeing an abusive, politically powerful husband when she absconded with her.

Anyway, the stars weren't really educated, well-read, well-mannered or cultured in any way. People like Hepburn and Davis were the exceptions.

So odd on those old WML mystery guests how little time was devoted after the celeb was revealed to chat with them and let them properly publicize their latest efforts.

The Opposite Sex was, of course, MGM's 1956 remake of The Women. Arlene was among the ensemble cast of The Women when it premiered on Broadway 20 years earlier in 1936. It would have been so amusing for John Charles Daly to acknowledge that and encourage Ann and Arlene to compare notes

Weren't Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda classmates at Princeton?

R73, her parents weren't married?

Do people actually believe Miller's line about being forced to lie about her age and say she was older so that she could get work? She sure as heck doesn't look 13 in Stage Door. This sounds like Dierdre Hall's line about being ten years younger...

Sugar Babies was a hilarious, feel good smash and Miller and Rooney we’re both extraordinary onstage.

In the piece that Rex Reed wrote about her, he says that she found her father in bed with someone who,wasn't her mother and convinced the mother to take her away from their town.

Her age was confirmed by census records.

Ticket sales for Mame improved markedly after Ann was cast. The show had been on twofers and possibly closing prior to her assuming the lead.

Wikipedia sez:

[quote] She lived in Texas until she was nine, when her parents divorced (if indeed they were ever legally married, an issue which has been called into question[2]) reportedly due to her father's infidelities.

And yes her age is confirmed by census records.

Talented lady. She was a star and never went out without looking like a star.

I saw Sugar Babies on Broadway. Great, great, memorable show.

On any official documents (tax returns, etc.) where Ann Miller was asked to state her occupation, her answer: "Movie Star"

That she was was, my friends. That she was.

That broad could dance. She was friggin amazing.

Ann Miller was great friends with Ann Rutherford and Anne Jeffreys. They called their group The Three Anns. Rutherford was a real pisser.

Was Ann Rutherford a pisser? You're not confusing her with Scarlett's other sister Evelyn Keyes, are you, r88?

Ann Miller's nose looks just about movie star perfect in that photo at r83, as it does in motion in the WML clip, as well as at age 13 in Stage Door, IIRC.

Did she get a nose job in later life? What was she trying to fix?

I don't think Sugar Babies was filmed for posterity but there is a number from it on one of those Tony shows.

"Did she get a nose job later in life?'

Yes. Ann felt that you can't have too little of a good thing.

"Juddee"

I recently saw Ann's This is Your Life episode which was filmed in England. It's funny when Kathryn Grayson comes out, and Ann says, 'You look wonderful', when she really looks like shit.

[quote] Does anyone know if Ann Miller was a friend to the gays? did she ever hang in gay bars?

I don't know if she hung out in bars, but during the tour of SUGAR BABIES, in the early 1980s, I believe, she appeared in a Q&A at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, prior to a screening of KISS ME KATE. The Castro has a giant Wurlitzer organ and she entered from lobby, and as she walked down the aisle, the organist played 'From This Moment On' and the crowd went wild. She stopped several times along the way as people reached out to touch her. and she appeared to be genuinely touched by the outpouring of affection from the crowd.. She could not have been more gracious as she answered questions and told stories.

She was doing 8 shows a week and the last thing she probably wanted to do on her night off was to get all dressed up and be 'on' for yet another performance, but there she was, acting as if this was the only place in the world she wanted to be.

I know she did an AIDS benefit at the Castro in 2002, so yeah, I think she was a friend of the gays

In his autobiography, Jerry Herman wrote of a dinner he had for Ethel Merman and Ann Miller. He said the Merm 'always got a kick out of Ann'.

Wouldn't you just love to have been at that dinner? Gay heaven

If she never made any other films besides EASTER PARADE, KISS ME KATE, ON THE TOWN, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU and STAGE DOOR, she'd still be at the forefront of Hollywood's biggest musical stars.

Eleanor Powell was a better dancer but her films are unwatchable (except for her numbers).

Agree with R97.

Being a "second lady" in a production IS being a star.

Let us not forget "Reveille with Beverly. "

By that measure, we would be judging Lucille Ball by Stone Pillow.

Let's be sensible.

Wasn’t Ann also at Republic for a while pre-MGM? I think that’s where she made “Reveille With Beverly”!

Forbidden Broadway has her surveying her career in the number "I'm Still Weird."

She seemed to like dressing in red.

An example.

Her signature color was a sort of watermelon red, a light, pinkish, intense red.

It really was flattering, absolutely glowed in technicolor, and she wore the same pink-red color in film after film.

Red is the star's color.

Tough broad and could put over a number. I like her.

She was on Tom Snyder with Mickey Rooney and he asked if they feuded and Ann said firmly "tacky people do that".

Stand up Ira and take a bow!

Brassy Broad.

Me too r110. I also miss brassy, brash actress broads.

Kathleen Turner may be the last of that breed.

She was beautiful in Kindergarten Cop.

R89 No. I know of whom I speak. LOL

Rutherford was indeed a pisser. Gracious in an old Hollywood style with a little bit of naughtiness mixed in.

Ann comments on Mickey . . .

If Garland lived and was healthy, Sugar Babies would have been Mickey and Judy together again.

She was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier in Houston, Texas.

....with Ann Miller in the Ann Jillian role?

[quote]If Garland lived and was healthy, Sugar Babies would have been Mickey and Judy together again.

Jenny Lind was likelier to rise out of the grave ninety years after her death better prepared to take on a Broadway show than Judy Garland ever could have been in 1979.

As my grandmother would've said "she was a real pisser!"

In a documentary on Rita Hayworth Ann told a story about her and Hermes Pan being invited to dinner at Rita's house.

R115, that was a little treat. Thx.

Picture it: 1994. I was working at Virgin Megastore on Sunset Blvd.

I was in charge of the soundtrack/Broadway section, natch. Who comes in all painted up to look like herself but Miss Ann Miller. I was pretty thrilled. She needed help finding stuff. I was happy to oblige.

I was helping her browse, and we came across one of Ben Bagley's compilation albums. She tells me "I had to SUE this son of a bitch! He put me on one of these albums without my permission. And the album cover was a woman naked except for a flower. You could see her snatch."

Yes. Ann Miller said "snatch" to me.

I remember I would throw out names to her and she would react. "Mickey Rooney" "Mike, that man is the DEVIL incarnate. But he's brilliant. He KNOWS more than most of us have FORGOTTEN!"

She had a poor, long suffering assistant with her all the times. Mousy thing, about 45 years old, kinda lesbianish. Ann was mean to her. Ann came in several times, and always asked for me. Eventually she'd come in and bellow "Where's MIKE?"

"Judy Garland" "Mike, what LB Mayer put that poor girl through I'll never forgive him for. After she was fired from Annie, I took her with me to Cuba. I was dating Batista, you know. Before the commies took over!"

I was partying a ton in those days. I'm afraid I had meth breath (don't judge, I was 22) She made no bones about it, one time. Blatantly fanning her hand in front of her nose when I got too close.

I left the job in May of 1995, and never got to say goodbye. I always felt a little bad, imagining her coming in and saying "Where's Mike!!" and being told I was gone. She likely took it out on that poor assistant.

R123, great story! Thanks for sharing with us!

If you have any more, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.

R123 Funny story. That poor assistant. Here's the Bagley snatch.

Big Homophob...once insisted absolutely " No Faries " in her background dancer troup. Had a male dancer fired for being too ' sissy '. Seethed with jealousy over Marilyn Monroe long after Monroes death. A nasty bitch .

Source please.

Annie had the tighest schmundie of any 16yr goy on the lot. On my muthas grave.

I don't know about that. I've worked with gay stage directors who wouldn't hire a gay actor for a particular part because he didn't think the actor could pass as a straight character, and it would be distracting to the audience. I'm not sure that's necessarily homophobia.

Did Ann massively shrink as she aged because she looks to be the shortest of the three Anns in r88's photo. I mean it's sort of known that she was 5'8" or somewhere thereabout. I've heard her talking about her height disparities with co-stars being a hindrance.

The following came up from a google search for "Ann Miller, homophobic" and was from another DL thread:

"Ann Miller was close friends with a gay pal of mine who was her wardrobe..."

R130 In her final movie she's the same height as Naomi Watts, who's 5'4". It's pretty common to shrink as we age.

But why didn't the other 2 Anns shrink?

Yes dear, I'm hip hip to the fact of shrinking r132. So she shrank approximately 4 inches which I'd consider somewhat massive. I wonder if Ann Rutherford remained the same height her entire life because she looks a few inches taller. Not that I've every considered Rutherford's height but I never noticed her towering over Mickey Rooney in those Andy Hardy movies.

[quote]Yes dear, I'm hip hip to the fact of shrinking

Well, hip hip hooray to your being hip hip .... dear.

" All told, men will get about 1.2 to 1.5 inches shorter, and women will lose up to 2 inches, by age 70." I guess she lost somewhat more height by the time she was 77 and filming "Mulholland Drive".

Agreed, R61 and R64 — Phil Rizzuto was hot! Who knew?!

Thanks for the heads up! r135 You ooze insightfulness by golly.

Thanks, R124.

This was before DVDs, and Virgin had a huge Laser Disc section. If you remember, Laser Discs were as big as 33 1/3rd record albums.

On the Town had just been released on LD. I put it aside for when she came in to sign it. Next time she came it, I brought it to her, she looked at it and said "what the hell is THIS thing?" Before I could answer she said "ANOTHER thing I'm not getting paid for." She called the assistant over to list this item in the assistant's never ending "to do" list to find out if she was owed any money for it. She signed it for me, and handed it over.

Except, again, those were crazy days for me. I was always poor. I had her sign it, but I couldn't afford the twenty-four bucks to buy the thing. So I sneaked it to the basement, and threw it behind the dumpster in the garage. Went and picked it up later after work. I really, really, really wish I'd kept it. It got thrown out during some move. I'm a moron.

There was a guy who worked upstairs in video at Virgin- Asian kid, my age or there about. He was the biggest MGM musical fan queen I ever knew. And he was a dancer. One day, when Ann came in, I ran up and said "Come down with me" "why?" "Just come" I had him close his eyes. Took him right in front of Ann, and told him to open his eyes. He nearly plotzed. This HUGE smile came across his face, tears in his eyes. He was trying to talk, but not getting the words out. I think this actually may have been the first time he'd met any MGM star. Ann sort of reverted to 1946 for a moment, and acted every inch the movie star.

In general, though, she was very much like you'd expect. Loud, brassy, and fucking kooky. I really treasure that I got to know her a bit.

One more story about the Asian guy, who's name I wish I remembered. Years later, I remember seeing his name on some documentary about musicals- he'd become a Hollywood historian of a sort. But back in 1994, upstairs at Virgin, we had the laser discs, and the big projection screen TV. This was before HD, but the big screen up in that section was rectangular shaped, so the laser disc letterbox format fit, even though it was not HD.

This kid, on his shift, would constantly play MGM musicals. He knew them all by heart. He knew the lyrics, AND the dance steps. I went up there one day- this kid is standing in front of the big TV. He has his back to it, he can't see it. Behind him on screen is either Betty Grable or Betty Hutton, doing some great song and dance routine. The kid, with his back to the television, IS REPLICATING HER DANCE STEPS PERFECTLY IN TIME with what was going on the screen. He and Betty were moving as one, and singing as one! And then he put on some outtakes, and he was doing the same thing with the outtakes, with the screw ups and everything. What made it so interesting was that he was also doing the exact facial expressions of whatever actress was on screen. I really should've brought Ann up to witness this wonderful performance!

I sure do miss those days.

R137 And you ooze brain shrinkage, by gum.

R138, was this Asian kid Japanese, and was his name Hisato?

[quote][R137] And you ooze brain shrinkage, by gum.

For responding to your brain dead comments? Perhaps.

She could have worn flats so as not to appear taller than Naomi.

R140 OMG YES!!!!

Now we all are going to want to know what happened to Hisato.

He became a Hollywood historian of a sort.

Seems like Hisato is an actor. His biggest success seems to have been in the field of voice over. Good for him. I enjoyed the heck out of him at Virgin.

R34 if you lived in the Tri-state area circa 1979, and we're age 8 or older you damn-well knew about Ann Miller from the endless television commercials for Sugar Babies that seemed to run for goddamned ever. Seriously, it's seems like they were both with the show for several years. And I even remember when Rooney left the show they did an ad with Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney's replacement Joey Bishop. I don't think it ran very long with him.

R140 thanks for reminding me of his name! Whadda kick in the pants! : - )

According to the IBDB page Ann didn't have a vacation from the Broadway run, unlike Mickey.

Not going lie. As a kid, seeing her on TV scared me. The nails, the hair, the fake lashes. Too much for me. Later I saw her dance in movies and loved her.

[quote]Weren't Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda classmates at Princeton?

No. Joshua Logan, Jimmy, and Jose Ferrer were each a year apart in Princeton, in that order from older to younger.

[quote]I guess she lost somewhat more height by the time she was 77 and filming "Mulholland Drive".

She suffered from "crippling osteoporosis".

Rex Reed: "She made one final movie appearance in David Lynch’s bizarro crime melodrama Mulholland Drive and phoned me to say, “I can’t wait to read your review of this thing. Maybe you can explain it to me. The business is in the toilet, honey, but as long as I can stand up, I just say, ‘Point me in the right direction and get out of the way.'” Alone and suffering from crippling osteoporosis, her final days were sad, but she never once admitted she was down for the count."

Her segment in THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT III is quite touching. I don't mean the film clips of her but her comments about the studio. I don't know if there's a clip of it that can be linked here.

I especially enjoy that final part of the series because the stars presenting the clips, made in the early 1990s, are the last survivors of MGM: Howard Keel, June Allyson, Cyd, Debbie, Gene, Lena, et. al. The last gasp.

We can't see the shoes on the 3 Anns in that upthread photo so who knows who's really tallest? Jeffreys and Rutherford look heartier than Miller so they may each be wearing 3" heels.

IIRC in That's Entertainment III, Ann Miller talks about how she had to wear ballet flats to dance with Fred Astaire in Easter Parade. And she gladly did it for the opportunity to partner with him. You can see those flat shoes in the number It Only Happens When I Dance With You, they really made no pretense about hiding them.

R150 Great anecdote. And the thing is, she was great in the movie! She definitely seemed to understand the two distinct characters she was playing.

It's too darn hot!

R146, You're welcome. When I read your description of the Asian kid who loved and re-enacted MGM musicals, I thought, "This can only be one person: Hisato." And it wasn't just MGM musicals, he loved all the old time Hollywood musicals, stanning bigtime over Deanna Durbin, mimicking that operatic voice of hers on cue. He could not stop singing and dancing and twirling and making all those sugary and coy facial expressions and hand gestures.

Hisato is quite flamboyant!

Not so, R65--Gloria Stuart started acting in Hollywood films in 1932 and was still around in films at the time that Miller appeared in Mulholland Drive. Barbara Perry was born the same year as Miller, started in Hollywood films a year earlier (in Counselor-at-Law with John Barrymore), and was still working as of last year.

Except Gloria Stuart, not to mention Barbara Perry, were not first rank stars like Ann Miller and Lillian Gish. If Stuart hadn't made Titanic she would be completely forgotten.

Would either have ever been invited to appear as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? Of course, not.

“Well just call me Coco, everybody does.”

True, R159, but the original post did not limit the category to first rank stars. Even though she's long forgotten now, Anita Page was a star for a while in the 20s and acted in her last film in 2010.

I don't know about how many inches osteoperosis takes off you, but if you look at the build of her legs, you can clearly see she is a tall woman.

Ann Miller was a "broad" in the best sense of the word.

And, R158, Gloria was off screen only 50 years before doing Titanic.

I just think when you're comparing longevity and the names Lillian Gish, Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller come up, you're talking about a certain rarefied level of stardom.

In her memoir Ann Miller described having vivid dreams of living in Ancient Egypt and having power. A psychic told her that she had been Queen Hatshupset.

R166 Queen HATSHEPSUT.

Enough already R167, that justifies the nosejob.

Also from her biography, she said that she would have had a better career if she had done the casting couch thing (as many did).

Ann isn't very strong at the start of this. But Goddamnit, something happens maybe half way through. She begins to embody the song. Ann may not be too much like Carlotta, but they were both chorus girls who'd been through the mill, and came out the other end and fucking SURVIVED. By the end of this song, Ann is triumphant, and we're right there with her.

I love when she sings, "61 years being cheered."

She was so fantastic, y'all.

True, R164/R165, though Miller's film career had also died 45 years before Mulholland Drive revived it, and she was not in the same echelon as either Gish for cinema history or Rooney for box office. Several unquestionable stars were still working around the time that Mulholland Drive was released, and in actual production years they'd kept working in film/TV movies longer than Miller had, even if they'd started up to a decade later: Maureen O'Hara, Lansbury, Bacall had all worked steadily, and slightly less famous stars like Teresa Wright and Jean Simmons had as well. Alas, after over 70 years of reasonably solid work in the business, brassy broad Sylvia Sidney died the same year that the TV version of Mulholland Drive aired, a couple of years before the film version was released.

Did you know that Ann Miller's dog was named... Koko?

It's like Ann's head is still going to pop out of 455 North Sycamore Avenue anytime now.

Wasn't her nickname "Tops in Taps?"

In her memoir she stated that she badly wanted the role of the female dancer in Easter Parade - it was a lavish MGM production and she would be hitting the bigtime.

She went to an executive acquaintance and asked him to intervene - he coolly told her that he would recommend her but couldn't promise her the role.

Well, she GOT the role and it was the biggest movie hit of the year. And she hit the bigtime!

R175, do you know who else was in the running?

R175, Cyd Charisse was originally slated for Miller's role and Gene Kelly was supposed to be in Astaire's role, but both Charisse and Kelly were sidelined with injuries. Charisse had torn a knee ligament, and Kelly broke his ankle in a fit of anger while stamping his foot after losing a volleyball game. Sinatra was also originally cast in Peter Lawford's role.

r155, that number was filmed in 3D and it really loses its effect in 2D. Those hands and scarves and her legs all coming at you in the theatre was amazing.

At the end of her life, Ann had the most amazing home in the old movie star colony section. A big yellow spanish mansion on a corner with huge park-like yard and pool, all exposed to the street - no fence. She'd married a Texas oil barron after the stair pusher and seemed well-off.

That house was in Palm Springs, btw...

The one and only marvelous Ann Miller!

I met Ann, too. The summer I turned 22 I worked as an intern for Kathrine Baumann, who was a chic purse designer in Beverly Hills. (You'd know her work-- the little jeweled purses that looked like Minnie Mouse, red lips, so forth. "Wearable pop art," Kathrine used to say.)

Kathrine had a lot of celebrity clients. I got to meet Tippi Hedren one day, who came in in a fully leopard-print outfit, head-to-toe.

But Ann Miller came in one day to pick up her jeweled purse, in the shape of a fish, which was being repaired in the back by the rows and rows of Mexican women.

Ann walks in, shouting, "Kathrine! Kathrine! Where's my fishy? Where's my fishy?" I didn't really know who she was at the time, so I asked my roommate, who was extremely gay and loved MGM musicals, and he about had a heart attack. (As I did when Tippi Hedren walked in that other time.)

delightfully gay

A previous poster mentioned how Miller saved the Broadway run of MAME when ticket sales slowed to a crawl. In fact, the rights to the show had already been released while Jane Morgan was still chugging along in the role in New York. Ann appeared in a production in Florida which is where they first turned the Lindy Hop in "That's How Young I Feel" into an extended tap dance.

Audiences were ecstatic and the original producers soon came down to have a look. They booked Ann for Broadway as soon as possible. She extended the show's run by more than a year. Incidentally, Paris Themmen played Young Patrick opposite Miller in New York shortly before filming the role of Mike TeeVee in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

In defense of Jane Morgan, although she was apparently not as good an actress as Angela Lansbury, Janis Paige, or even Ann Miller; Jane was the best singer of the bunch (including vacation Mame, the Academy Award Winning Actress, Celeste Holm.) There used to be a video available on-line of Jane singing "It's Today" on the Ed Sullivan show, no doubt trying to boost the box office. It is a pleasure to hear that song sung that well. Paris Themmen

R178, On the Tonight Show appearance with Joan Rivers posted above, Ann said she was in deep financial trouble prior to Sugar Babies, which made her wealthy.

I read some where that Ann had a fling with Louis B. Mayer. Has anyone heard that before?

Did Ann ever try going blonde?

We've heard from Ann about Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire but I'd love to know if she had any dish on Dub Taylor!

[quote]But Goddamnit, something happens maybe half way through.

It sure does. She suddenly becomes MGM's Ann Miller again.

I've heard that Sondheim considers hers the best performance of that song.

Gloria Stuart in Titanic was a piece of wood. It was ludicrous that James Cameron was touting her return to the screen, ala Norma Desmond. No one knew who the hell she was when she was actually working in films in the 30s.

Ann Miller always denied the rumors that she slept with LB Mayer. Until she died she said that her mother never would have allowed it (I guess she lived with Ann) but that she and her mother often consented to go out dancing with LB after his divorce.

Was Ann married just twice? Was she divorced from her second husband or did he die?

Though it's true that Ann made no films between her final MGM days in the mid-1950s until Mulholland Drive, she was always working in show biz in theater of all kinds and TV.

I guess Ann was way too tall to ever partner with Gene Kelly? He's dancing in the background of that number with the cave men in On the Town, but never gets close enough to Ann to show a height disparity.

If you look real close at Kelly and Astaire in their musical numbers with certain female partners, they often had modified Cuban style heels on their shoes to give them another inch. I think Gene was about 5'7" and Fred 5'8".

Nat anuthah ward from you, R187, or I'll hit ya with a POT!

Jane Morgan IS "Mame!"

Jane does sing the score well it seems, but Mame is a personality role if there ever was one and that clip certainly doesn't help sell me. Ann Miller I can see nailing the role.

I always thought Jane and Jaye P Morgan were sisters or even the same person. In R193, none other than Maeve Ryan is playing Gooch.

R188 I became obsessed with the 2011 revival of Follies. Saw Elaine Paige sing that song ten times. Now, I love La Paige, and she's a better singer than Miller was... but she just didn't GET the song the way Ann did. I'd take Ann Miller's version any day.

R195 Ann Miller lived the era that the song describes.

It wasn't her personal story but she was the kind of show-biz trouper the song celebrates.

And the tag line "I'm Still Here" certainly applies to her.

Elaine Paige no matter great she is just can't embody the number the way Ann Miller does in that clip.

Jane Morgan "back sings" that entire number. Is that the right term. She's either ahead or behind the music all the way.....

Didn't Susan Hayward briefly star in the Las Vegas production of Mame either before or after Celeste Holm?

I've fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole of Ann Miller interviews. She was always a STAH, but there was something so down to earth about her at the same time. No wonder Merman apparently got a kick out of her. You can tell she'd be a fun broad to knock back a few drinks with.

Not to mention that she was obscenely talented. Maybe not the world's greatest actress, but she had pure star quality and could really put over a number. She's far too old and not the right type for Carlotta in Follies (as was Polly Bergen), but she nails "I'm Still Here." It's a thrill to watch.

I just saw one interview where she was talking about headlining a production of Call Me Madam at some point in the 80's or 90's. I bet she'd have been great. You also have to love her for working with David Lynch in Mulholland Drive right at the end of her career/life. I guess she figured she had nothing to lose. It's still not the kind of movie you'd picture a former MGM star signing on to.

Susan Hayward did play Mame and I heard she did quite well. I'd love to hear clips of her singing since she was infamously dubbed in Valley of the Dolls.

Susan's voice gave out and Celeste replaced her....

Susan Hayward did her own singing in I'll Cry Tomorrow as Lillian Roth. Her voice, even back then, was a little rough but very game and she sure sells When the Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along. Not so easy if you ask me.

Why would Ann Miller be too old for Carlotta? Just select the year on her banner carefully.

The original.....

Where's my FISHY!

Blonde Ann.

Carlotta is supposed to be around the same age as the two leads, Sally and Phyllis.

Morgan’s timing was all off in the clip at R193!

Far too old for Carlotta at that point (hell, so was Paige) but the way she sings the song is pretty thrilling.

[quote] I've heard that Sondheim considers hers the best performance of that song.

I've heard that he was in the "I'm Still Weird" crowd and was not pleased with Miller's performance and that was partially the reason he didn't oppose the Widow Goldman's forbidding the Paper Mill's transfer to Broadway. But I don't know Sondheim or the Widow Goldman and don't know what really went on behind the scenes except that everyone at the time expected the production to transfer to Broadway. I'm grateful for the recording because it is the most complete and well done even if not perfect.

I believe Sondheim did not approve of Ann Miller's performance of the song. Not only did she add words (she didn't on the recording) but there was no thought or feeling in her delivery other than here I am, I can still stand and hit the notes.

Here she is on The Mike Douglas Show, along with other legendary MGM stars. Out of all of them, she's the only one who kept her glamour up.

I've seen a complete performance boot of the Paper Mill production. The order of the arrivals was changed from the original and revival productions, to showcase Ann removing a full length fur coat and revealing that stunning light blue gown.

That clip at r214 is hard to watch. Annie is not given much support from her colleagues.

Ann's run in MAME went from May 26, 1969 to Jan. 3, 1970. During the run, two-fers were in use.

[quote]That clip at [R214] is hard to watch. Annie is not given much support from her colleagues.

She bravely stood up for GLAMMA

^ Yes, but did she have FLAVAH?

I can understand Sondheim disliking her performance. She's not playing the character he wrote. I do think she's pretty wonderful there, on her way.

Not sure Sondheim was too thrilled with the 2011 revival either. But word was he would sneak in the back of the theater at 9:30pm to catch Rosalind Elias' hauntingly beautiful version of One More Kiss. I saw her do it five times, and it was magical.

She had money from somewhere. When she died her property was auctioned, she had some beautiful pieces and a hoard of jewellery both real and costume, and no one to leave it to, sad. Though I imagine Ann wasn't the type to feel sorry for herself.

[Quote]That clip at [R214] is hard to watch. Annie is not given much support from her colleagues.

I think Ann stood up for herself extremely well. I don't think she cared if they supported her or not; she spoke her own mind while remaining gracious to her other colleagues. Actually, I think they were very respectful of one another, and enjoyed the reminiscing and chit-chat.

P.S. I loved that they had choreographer Hermes Pan as a fellow guest. He was the man behind many of the dance number successes of Hollywood, especially those of Fred Astaire. He seemed very charming and sincere, and well-appreciated by the others.

Ann's house last year, not her things obviously

not her things but very much her taste

Who got her wigs and her pallets of Ultra-Clutch?

R214 Janis Paige: Wet blanket.

r226 Well, Janie and I are the only ones still left, bitch!

Janis had an absolute abundance of verve.....

I love Ann in “You Can’t Take it Witj You”. Unfortunate for Ann, Jean Arthur is luminous in that particular movie, and completely outshines Ann.

[quote]Janis had an absolute abundance of verve.....

But Annie had an abundance of SPUNK!

That's what she used to keep that hairdo tamed!

Annie's Spiderwoman.....

Why is she abusing fish at the Hollywood Palace, R230?

It's a Cruella twist, r233. She has them made into purses.

Janis Paige in "It's Always Jan"

No fish war actually harmed, kids. They were really made of CARN!

Annie looks particularly out of date with her ultra teased hair and faux Suzoe Wong gown in that clip with Janis Paige and other MGM survivors.

Jan, on the other hand, in her white fedora and pantsuit, looks like she's waiting for Kiss of the Spider Woman to written for her. Ahead of her time.

Fred Astaire was clearly looking to distance himself from those dames.

Suzie Wong!

The other actresses didn't like the control MGM had over their careers. They were told what roles to take and basically owned. You can't blame them for that.

It took you two Wongs to make a right, r238!

Judy was doing Greer, not sure who Ann is doing, but she's fun in this.....

Mame should have originated with Ann rather than Angela.

Martin Gottfried said that both Ann Miller and Carol Channing would have been great Mrs. Lovett's.

I can see it now....."with or without his privates. Tap, tap, tap".

Ann Miller was apparently underage when they shot "Stage Door" the story is Lucille Ball and Ginger Rogers helped Anne get that job by convincing the powers that be that Ann was 17 when she was really 14

[quote]Martin Gottfried said that both Ann Miller and Carol Channing would have been great Mrs. Lovett's.

"City on fire!" would have been a cue for Ann to go into her big tap number.

Ann looked really young and geeky in Stage Door. I saw it decades back at a revival house and a lot of people didn't know it was Ann at first. Lucy, young as she was, was immediately recognizable.

Ann Miller in Stage Door. You never would've guessed she was only 14.

Dierdre Hall was only 13 when she did Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Judy Strangis who played her sidekick Dyna Girl was 14 years older than her.

Could Ann or Carol have done the Cockney accent? Other than that, I could see them both being very interesting Lovetts. They'd have to change some keys (especially for Carol).

Sweeney Todd is an ensemble piece. Mrs. Lovett isn't a star turn. I can't imagine Carol or Ann adapting to that.

Carol or Ann just never had the technical skill to pull off something like Todd. They're great, but that just wasn't their bag, baby.

^Finally Helen Lawson chimes in.

Sorry, I don't believe what Ann says about her age.

[quote]Sorry, I don't believe what Ann says about her age.

The 1930 census lists her as 6. Who lies about an 11-year-old in school in Texas?

That clip at r241 is horrendous. A bus and truck chorus. "Tne safety payen is borun!"

Oh, Annie. How wonderful you were and thank god we have you on film. She filmed "Shakin' the Blues Away" wearing a back brace because her husband had thrown her down a flight of stairs. True story. She SO wanted to make good in that picture because, as others have said, it was an MGM "A" musical and it catapulted her to "A" list stardom.

And she rocked Madame Crematante "A Great Lady Has an Interview" right off the screen (in that old clip), putting her own stamp on it. There was a lot of Judy in that number but also the uniqueness of Ann. Wonderful stuff. And only old MGM stars could pull that off.

Her wig could never hold it's shape no matter how much spray she used on it - so during SUGAR BABIES she had one made of the thinnest black wire....a real helmet head. She carried it in a hat box. That's the wig that saved her life when she got beaned by a light bar during a production.

Richard Dawson told this joke on Match Game: It was so windy today that I saw Ann Miller's hair move.

Both Linda Darnell and Betty Grable lied about their ages to get work and both got caught.

That actress who played Wrangler Jane on "F Troop" also lied about her age, but she got away with it.

R259 How vulgar and dishonest.

Ann commented that Easter Parade was a film full of queens - Fred, Peter Lawford, Jules Munshin, Chuck Walters, Judy and herself.

Source please, r261!

I don't know about Ann as Mrs. Lovett, but I'm genuinely shocked that she never played Rose in Gypsy somewhere. That role seems tailor made for her voice and personality.

Carol Channing could not handle Nellie Lovett's songs in Sweeney Todd. Never.

Annie was the product of a stage mother who lived with her until the day her momma died, so perhaps the subject matter was too distasteful?

I always wanted to see Ann play Mama Rose, too. Debbie Reynolds as well. I think she was going to do it in the early 80s in L.A. and the production fell through. If she'd been a better singer, I'd add Shirley MacLaine to that list, too.

Though you must admit, r264, Judge Turpin would have been a breeze for her!

She had a stage mother AND a momma?

R264, Jean Stapleton tried and made Mrs. Lovett Edith Bunker. It can be done.

But Stapleton's voice was in Lovett's vocal range, r269.

Wait! Jean Stapleton played Mrs. Lovett? That sounds amazing!

I don't think Stapleton's voice was in any range.

I saw Ann as Eliza Doolittle in Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1973. What a performance!

Sultry glamour....

Legend....

R273 now THAT would make a great Christmas card!

As would this.....

“Ann wasn't the type to feel sorry for herself”

No, but she felt sorry fah Esther Williams!

R277, I used to scan photos from my hollywood stills collection and print them up as Christmas cards. My favorite thing was to find a wildly inappropriate photo and write a seasonal tie-in greeting. My favorite was a still of the SA party in The Damned, with the greeting "I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, all Santa brought me were some damn brown shirts."

Of course, I was very careful as to who received them.

Murder. She Wrote was originally written for Jean Stapleton. CBS was looking for a project for her after she left All in the Family. She was interested and the pilot was rewritten to her specifications but she finally passed. So much work had been put into it that it was shopped around to other actresses. Angela was game and said yes. That's why she's dressed so dowdy in the first season but afterwards became much more stylish. After the show became a hit, Angela's input became much more important and she ended up being a producer.

Just another Angela/Jean same part story.

Oh dear..thread just got weird.

"Good times and bum times, I've seen them all and I'm weird.

I'm still weird."

R196 I saw the revival of Follies and was looking forward to Paige, as I had never seen her. She may be talented, but the night I saw her she so fucked up the song lyrics that it ruined it for me--I swear any retail queen or ribbon clerk in the audience could have done a better job with the song than she did that night!

I think Miller's version is very touching on the recording. I still like De Carlo's. The one I hate is Carol Burnett--with her Texas twang. And she didn't really LIVE the song the way others did.

Did Garland sing I'm Still Here?

Garland died before the song was written.

Yes, Ann Miller's version and Yvonne DeCarlo's version were both great because they both lived through the era the song is about, and their lives had certain parallels to the lyrics.

That stinks. I think she'd have been ok.

Ann and Carole Cooke used the same hairdresser at the old Robinson's in Beverly Hills. Carole jokes about the amount of hairspray the guy had to use. Plus, he had her color formula from Lucy.

R285 For what it's worth, Liza & Lorna both did "Broadway Baby".

R289, I wonder if the hairdresser is still around. Carole is. She'll be 95 next month, is still working and apparently still using Lucy's color formula. This new film looks rather high on the Gay-O-Meter.

She should have been Mrs.Conrad Hilton but The Gabors showed up.Her helmut hair revolutionized the 40s,50s

I wonder why Howard Hughes never married her.But as the unofficial mistress of a big studio head....whom she owed her career too

She was so famous, the panel couldn't even get close to guessing her

^ The best was Gale Storm. Even after they took off their masks, they still didn't know who she was.

R293

The only reason the failed to guess her was because no one knew who she was.

The women in Stage Door wore their real life clothes.

They built a huge copy of New York City as it looked like in the 1900s for Easter Parade on the MGM. When MGM was sold in the late 60s by that wealthy creep, he had the whole thing torn down! can you imagine how incredible it must have looked? Also, many other amazing sets built for various period films were torn down. It was a horrible and sad period for Hollywood. It would have been amazing if they saved those sets and opened them to the public as a museum. I believed they would have made money doing that.

That Gale Storm appearance on WML is so sad and nervous-making! The panelists really didn't seem to know who she was (unlike with Ann Miller - - that's just not true).

This was in the early years of WML and, of course, snobby Bennett, Arlene and especially Dorothy, insisted they didn't watch TV because they were out night-clubbing and attending the legitimate theater and Gale was the star of the hit sitcom My Little Margie. She was probably one of the first stars made famous by a TV sitcom.

Gale was a great friend to the Gays. She hit the sauce rather heavily and unselectively, hence the expression "Any Port in a Storm."

I saw Ann as Eponine in a production of Les Miz at a theatre near Rancho Mirage in the late '80s, though the casting was no longer age appropriate, she was surprisingly poignant, and much like when she went into Mame, they added in a tap number specifically for her which didn't work so well with the song (At the End of the Day).

She was riveting as the Phantom in Phantom, at the Greater Kenosha Supper Club and Rollarink. Gave a whole new dimension to the part.

Her dinner theater version of Evita brought me to tears.

r298

She ruined her biggest hit by singing it. Here's how it should've been done

[quote]Her dinner theater version of Evita brought me to tears.

Are you sure it wasn't the gazpacho?

Blonde Ann in the wartime Paramount "B" - "PRIORITIES ON PARADE" The peppy "I'd Love To Know You Better" is by June Styne and Herb Magidson.

One of Ann's last Columbia "B"s , "THE THRILL OF BRAZIL" . In this film and "EADIE WAS A LADY" Ann was choreographed by Jack Cole, who unfortunately never worked with her after Ann went to MGM. It's nice seeing her do some atypical jazz dancing (with chorus boys in tight white pants, a Cole trademark) , but eventually Miller Must Tap.

Ann's "B" movies are a lot of fun at Columbia, Paramount and Republic are a lot of fun.

All Ann could do was tap. NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT

The big finale number in TIME OUT FOR RHYTHM. Ann is wearing one of worst dresses in film history. She looks like a tapping roast turkey leg.

I find it fascinating that Ann lingered for 10+ years at 2nd rate studios and mostly in their B pictures, and yet LB Mayer still saw something there that MGM could use and promote. You would think that she would ahave been thought old news and used goods by the late 1940s (even if she was still in her 20s). LB (or his talent scouts) had great instincts for stardom.

And she wasn't the only one. Ann Sothern and Lucille Ball had similar career trajectories, languishing in B pictures at RKO and Columbia but given a fresh start at MGM in the 1940s.

R302 Gale Storm had a lot of big hits in the 1950's and she did very well with them, including I Hear You Knocking. Her sales were big so that everybody loved them. I have them in my record collection from Golden Oldie stores.

R302 Dave Edmunds did the pop/rock version of I Hear You Knocking while Gale Storm's version was more Tin Pan Alley. Both were good and I have each of them.

Well, MGM needed another tap dancer to replace Eleanor eventually and I can't think of anybody at the other studios who would have fit the bill as well as Ann. As far as Lucille goes, the camera guys at MGM didn't call her Technicolor Tessie for nothin'!

R102 What's interesting is that I find that "I'm Still Weird" number to be pretty shockingly mean. This is a 75 year old woman, who worked very hard and had the guts to get up on that stage every night and be judged when she could easily have stayed in Palm Springs with her fishy purse. And your takeaway is to call her weird.

That said, if I'd heard the number in 1998, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. The culture has really shifted as to what "targets" area acceptable, and I guess I've shifted with it without really knowing. SNL would never do something like Belushi as Liz Taylor eating chicken now. Punching anywhere but up has become unacceptable. I guess I'm ok with that.

Just something I thought about.

I thought the "weird" referred to her astrology/occult interests.

Ann does a Jack-Cole like number in Hit the Deck, choreographed by Hermes Pan, called The Lady from the Bayou. Features some hunky chorus boys in tight pants.

better link.

I don't think the choreography fits Ann's style, r315.

Cyd would have really rocked that number.

r308: The same thing happened to Betty Grable at Fox. For ten years, she went from Goldwyn Girl to poverty row studios to minor roles at RKO and Paramount, which let her go in 1939. Her career was was stagnant until Fox signed her right afterwards and let her go into "DuBarry was A Lady " before being called back to replace Alice Faye in "Down Argentine Way" .

Though the two women were at different studios, Ann was best friends with Linda Darnell. They were both Texas gals with pushy stage mothers.

R297, At least they didn't misspell her name like they did with Ann SOTHERN.

In exactly what way, from the regular, does the dinner theatre version of Evita differ?

R313 Is she known for that? Having those beliefs? See, I thought it was because, even when she was in Sugar Babies, she seems like a person who'd stepped in the picture from another time. Her hair in Sugar Babies had its own ZIP code. And then ,as she got older, she became somewhat eccentric in her speech, dress and manner.

Again, that song, and much early Forbidden Broadway, were products of their time. I remember when they did the parody of Tyne Daly's Gypsy, her Rose came out in a fat suit dressed like a cop. Like, the joke was that Tyne was fat. They wouldn't do that today. I'm surprised the targets of those songs would often go to see Forbidden Broadway. It wasn't exactly good natured ribbing.

R315: Great pits. Second only to Cher.

R322, I mean, it's been a long time since I've read her autobiography, but I seem to recall her going into "kooky" pastimes and--even when she was at MGM--being known around the studio, I guess, as eccentric. Also, as I wrote somewhere above, she was very adamant that she didn't play the studio game, didn't engage in diva antics, didn't do the casting couch. She seemed to be very proud of doing things her own kooky way.

I always thought that the parody referred to that. Especially because I don't think her hair and clothes were thought to be weird in the 30s and 40s. It was her over-the-top personality.

[quote] See, I thought it was because, even when she was in Sugar Babies, she seems like a person who'd stepped in the picture from another time. Her hair in Sugar Babies had its own ZIP code.

I think a lot of the stars of that era (especially the musical stars) ended up looking like that. Look at Ginger Rogers at the same age.

Ann published a second book in 1990 called Tapping Into the Force, describing her experiences in the psychic world and discussing techniques of meditation, ways to channel knowledge, and principles of mind training. This is presumably what led to the weird label.

[quote]In the 1970s I was the (quite young) romantic lead in a dinner theater comedy in Santa Barbara, CA.

Santa Barbara only ever had two dinner theatres. One was on a ranch north of town, and the other was in a dumpy bar on the Mesa. Neither was Equity, and they were both dumps that Ann Miller wouldn’t have been caught dead in, even as a customer.

Cyd Charisse looked quite elegant and sophisticated until the day she died. She never had that grotesque ElderMGMDiva look.

Cyd was always a little different.

Though, I don't think that the 70's/80s flamboyance that R322 is talking about was particular to her: even younger showbiz, brassy sort of women--like the Gabors, Dolly Parton, even Tammy Faye Baker (I know...)--had it.

R326, did you ever get your hands on a copy? When I was a teenaged lesbo who lionized all these women, I searched desperately for a copy. (Bet it's merely a google search away now.)

Her book titles, Ann Miler’s High Life followed by Tapping Into the Force, are incomparable.

Love Ann Miller. She was one of those big movie stars who never was photographed or went outside without looking like a star. Those were the days.

Mulholland Drive was on TV the other day and I marveled how they ever persuaded her to be in that movie. Didn't a lot of the old MGM/Warner/RKO contract players have a thing about "obscenity" that they took with them into their post-studio contract careers. I know a lot of them didn't like "dirty talk" or sex or excessive violence. I wonder if Ann ever read the entire script with all the lesbian scenes and violence and ghoulish stuff. If she was game for it, all the power to her. Makes me wish she'd done one of those Hagsploitation movies.

A lot of actors don't read the script (unless their stars).

Sometimes they don't even get the script. Just their scenes.

Just occurred to me that in 1937 Ann was in a film about striving young actresses (Stage Door), then in 2000 was in a very different film about them (Mulholland Drive).

How DARE you, r327!!!

R327, our lawyers will be in touch.

Miller's presence in MH had a similar resonance to that of Davis and Crawford in Jane. Actual golden-age stars in modern films that deal with Hollywood and self-delusion.

R334 Good point.

Betty's door leads to hell not a stage.

I saw Tyne pre-Broadway, r322. By the time she got her Tony, it was obvious a run doing Rose on Broadway was a great way to drop the pounds.

My favorite Ann Miller story:

Halfway through an Oscar Hammerstein benefit in L.A., she turned to her escort and asked if anybody had seen Oscar. “Ann,” replied her astonished date, “Oscar Hammerstein died in 1960!” “Well, how would I know?” shot back Our Girl Annie. “I’ve been on the road!”

I've only seen Tyne via that video bootleg of Gypsy that's been going around for 30 years and I don't think she'd lost all the weight by then. Or maybe she did and put it back on. I know in the pro-shot clips and a lot of the still from the show, she looks pretty trim.

One of Ann's legendary quips: I hated "Cats". Too many pussies.

Was it coincidence that her second book had "Tapping" in the title, when "Miller's High Life" was the title of the first?

I found this anecdote on Facebook. During "Sugar Babies", Ann would listen to the "buzz" of the audience through the monitor speakers before the show, and if she felt like it was lackluster, she'd have the stage manager announce on the house microphone - "Ladies and Gentlemen, may I please have your attention. I'm sorry to report that Miss Miller is suffering with a sore throat and won't be able to go on this afternoon" and the audience would groan and boo. Then on the microphone, you'd hear a rustle, Ann would grab the mic and say, "No! I'm going on!" and the audience would cheer and the show would be fabulous.

Wow r344 that was pretty damn clever! Old Annie knew how to put on a show.

Love this brassy broad!

R344, fabulous!

From Billy Boys link: This is my favorite Ann Miller story: “Anyway, what this show needs is a big tropical-fruit number. It’s Panama. It’s hot. I see myself tapping in bananas and cherries. But those people who run the Cole Porter estate are the rudest people on earth. I wrote to them asking for permission to put ‘Heat Wave’ in the show, and they never even had the courtesy to reply.” I countered with: “But, Annie, ‘Heat Wave’ was written by Irving Berlin!” She gasped, her Nefertiti eye makeup widening her irises to the size of the pyramids. “Oh my God, honey, you just know everything! I’ll bet that’s why those Cole Porter people never answered my letter!”

R348, LOL

Once, in the 90's I wrote her for an autographed pic, and she wrote me back asking me to send $5 for postage!

So did you?

I'd rather have a letter from Ann asking for $5 than a measly photograph that everyone has.

Was it on "Ann Miller" stationery?

[quote]Cyd would have really rocked that number.

Not with her own singing voice! She would have needed to be dubbed.

r309

And Olivia Newton-John took Heart Attack to #3(#2 Cashbox) and Matthew Wilder took "Break My Stride" to # 5(#2 Cashbox).

Both were garbage.

[quote]And she wasn't the only one. Ann Sothern and Lucille Ball had similar career trajectories, languishing in B pictures at RKO and Columbia but given a fresh start at MGM in the 1940s.

No one knew what to do with Ann Sothern, she could actually act (Letter to Three Wives, Whales of August), sing and do comedy. She was pretty and still thin.

Lucy was pretty, though not as much as Ann but really couldn't do much with straight roles. She was excellent at comedy, but again, she was no wit, she had to be given the material. Everything that she did on "I Love Lucy," was written write into the script. She could make funny lines hilarious but was helpless without good writers.

Lucy was funny in person when interviewed about her RKO days in the documentary on the studio - Hollywood The Golden Years: The RKO Story.

Lucy talking about Katharine Hepburn.

I saw Celeste Holm in The Irregular Verb to Love with her husband Wesley Addy and...drum roll.....Mr. Christopher Reeve! I read in her bio that she charged 25 cents for her autograph that went to Unicef. I sent her a quarter and asked for a signed photo. I received it and she thanks me from Unicef. I still have it.

I love the story about Ann getting them to tell the audience that she was out. Very smart. As a performer myself, there's nothing worse than a dead audience. They make you work way too hard for too little. You end the show thinking everyone just had a lousy time when maybe they were just tired and not "up" enough. I've been to plays and musicals before that I thought were brilliant and the actors are working their butts off for one lousy chuckle up in the mezzanine. I always try to laugh good and loud to help them out. Sometimes, that's all a show needs. Sometimes, people aren't sure if something's supposed to be funny or not. They need a little help. I'm convinced that's why sitcoms have laugh tracks.

I rarely find a dead audience. In fact, it's usually the opposite with people laughing, whooping, screaming, and standing for dreck.

How does a performer judge an audience's value just by hearing them settling into their seats? What are the signs of a great audience?

Lucy was fun and funny in that short clip. Which is rare for her in interviews.

This number needed bananas and cherries.

"...people...standing for dreck."

R360 then it's a brain-dead audience.

True, R364, but that's not the kind of dead R359 meant. More like their experience of an audience was on "Let's Make a Deal."

The Lucy clip at R357 is fun! Lucy seems a bit incredulous at the end and I'm not used to seeing her that way.

That entire documentary about RKO (Lucy's clip is part of it) is actually pretty great and can be found on youtube. Ginger Rogers is also interviewed at length and seems quite sour, unlike Lucy.

I love to laugh.

I'm so glad this thread keeps going.

YES R369, me too. And I'm the poster upthread about the $5 request for postage! Of course I kept the letter on her stationery!

Was there a little♡ over the "i" in Miller?

There used to be an old Merv Griffin special episode on YT saluting the ladies of Broadway. The panel included Ethel Merman, Dolores Gray and Ann Miller. My recollection is that they were sort of putting up with Ann, who was interjecting good naturedly but with little insight. Nice but prone to being a little dim in a social setting, it would seem. Yet, she must have been smarter than she sometimes appeared to negotiate the business as she did.

R370 and R371, I love you both.

If you were to post a quick photo of the letterhead, "Ann Miller" from your collection, I just might swoon and die.

Here's another Ann anecdote lifted from Facebook told my a man who did her last public performance in 2002. By that time she was about 80, diminished but still fab. She emerged on the arms of her two aides-de-camp, shaky but exquisitely dressed for dinner, her jet-black hair slicked back in a tight bun, accented by large Spanish spit curls. And jewels for days. The first words out of her mouth were “Honey, I shrunk. I used to be five-foot-seven; now I’m five-foot-three!” Once a long-legged thoroughbred, she was now a petite old lady with a jittery gait. Yet still lovely to look at! Ann’s on-stage interviewer Jan Wahl came to dinner at Grand Café. Ann was obviously worn out by the flight, but sharp as a tack. Once she got her second wind, she regaled tales of MGM in its heyday. “Annie” yakked up a storm in her homespun Texan vernacular, dripping with “honey” and seasoned with phrases such as “Well I’ll be darned!” and “Bull-pucky!” Dinner was served, and Jan commented on Ann’s solid gold ring, encrusted with sparklers. Those were some big rocks on her little hands. Ann was famous for her couture costume jewelry. “This one’s Balenciaga!” she crowed. Her assistant Pat took her ring off and passed it around the table. Pat slipped the oversized bauble back on Ann’s bony finger. A ring once snug as a bug in a rug now dangled loosely. Ann lifted her fork, and lo and behold the ring slipped off her hand and dropped right into her mashed potatoes! There it was, glistening radiantly in a sea of brown gravy. The group pretended not to notice and Ann didn't realize it was gone. Pat slid it back on Ann’s finger, then gave a knowing wink. When they exited the Grand Café, an excited gay couple recognized Ann Miller and was beside themselves. One whispered, “There goes a true star.”

[quote]I saw Celeste Holm in The Irregular Verb to Love with her husband Wesley Addy and...drum roll.....Mr. Christopher Reeve! I read in her bio that she charged 25 cents for her autograph that went to Unicef. I sent her a quarter and asked for a signed photo. I received it and she thanks me from Unicef. I still have it.

And that bitch got the tax write-off. What a scam!

Well she did have to pay postage to send me the 8X10, r375, soooo.......

Arthur Bell (The late gay journalist for the VOICE) was on a press junket surrounding the release of the Streisand STAR IN BORN. Barbra and Jon Peters met the press in matching tuxes. Barbra said something that the reason she wore the tux was to show how women could now do things that men had always done (or something similar to that) and wearing a tux was empowering. Bell leaned back and stage-whispered to a colleague "Who raised HER women's consciousness? Ann Miller?"

I looked at Celeste Holm's apartment at 88 Central Park West shortly before she died. My lawyer arranged it. She was dressed in a pink pants suit and was lying on a sofa on oxygen. Her face looked very good and her hair and makeup were perfect. Her husband Frank Basile (sp?) was there. She had signed over most of her money to her children who did not trust her much younger husband. I tried to buy it and give her the right to stay there for the rest of her life. The building's board said no because they were afraid her husband would never leave after she died so I bought the apartment I now live in. She died a year later and the apartment was sold for around $10,000,000 which was a good deal because it was in a great building but needed a total renovation.

Was it THIS pink pantsuit, r378?

No, E379. It was very pale pink, almost the color of her skin.

Sorry, R379

I was joking, r380. MANY years I was at Eaves-Brooks pulling costumes for a production of MAME. They still had a few of Angela's (I assume from the revival). They also had an avocado green version of the It's Today pants ensemble. I didn't check its label. I wonder which MAME dame wore it. I assume a redhead.

Oh, and as I recall, it was the sleeveless version.

R374, thank you for sharing that!

R378, do you know whatever happened to the husband?

And thank you for sharing!

r357

Isabel Sanford said, when she was late one day Katharine asked why and she said, the bus was late. She then said, Katharine flew past her and went to Spencer Tracy, and said, "Isabel is taking a bus to the studio, we have to do something about that right now."

Isabel said they went to the producer Stanley Kramer who told her to take a taxi and get a receipt and get reimbursed by accounting at the end of each week. Such a Katharine thing to do.

R378 here. Dear R385, he received 1/3 of the net proceeds from the sale. They owed a lot of money including several years worth of maintenance on the apartment to the coop board, but he still ended up with around $3,000,000.00.

Wasn't Celeste's husband much younger than her and a bit of a grifter? I half-remember reading something about that.

R387, whoa! Thanks for the info.

I remember reading (here on DL, bitches) that he had signed an agreement or something--this when CH was still alive, barely--to receive something like 340k from her estate as a sort of prorate of whatever a companion/nurse would have cost her for the years they were "married." (Because he was a former opera singer who was boffing people on the side?) And that her son, who had been fighting for giving him zilch, had finally agreed to it.

At the time, I don't recall there being any talk of him receiving proceeds from the property--but evidently hard hearts softened.

I appreciate your insider info.

R389 here.

I don't know anything about these people personally, but I don't recall him being spoken of as a grifter--or doing things like spending her money without authorization or something like that. He was more like a live-in nurse who took her to doc appointments, made sure she was dressed, etc. She lived to a very frail old age. Could they have gotten a latin lady for 30k a year without the 3 mill settlement at the end? Probably, but her kids didn't want to take care of that.

Plus he was also a "walker."

Getting back to Ann. Here she is doing "I'll Be Hard to Handle" from Lovely To Look At.

R372, Karen Morrow was on that show too. In fact, Ethel was fawning over her, while seemingly just tolerating Ann and Dolores.

R385, Wasn't he an opera singer?

From what was visible to the public at least, Frank loved Celeste very much and took excellent care of her. She met him in 1999 and they were together till her death. She always seemed happy to be out on the town with him and they sometimes performed together.

Frank was with her when she died. The sons reportedly were not.

The settlement for Frank was reported in the Times as 1/3 of the proceeds from the estate, including the sale of the apartment, which went on the market for $13.95M and sold for $10.5M. After the bills were paid, and taxes, who knows how much that actually ended up being?

No inheritance tax on 10m. (And anyway, he was her husband.)

Ann talks about getting to the set on time and Judy and Liza being addicted to drugs, and says an approximation of "hit hiim with a pot" in these clips

Interesting that Ann never married another actor or even a show biz guy. Did she ever famously date anyone famous?

I wonder if Ann was ever in competition with Cyd Chariise over any roles at MGM? They were very different dancers and actresses but there must have been some rivalry going on there.

I think the only time they appeared together was in that wild and crazy flamenco style dance they did with Ricardo Montalban (who was at his hottest) in The Kissing Bandit starring Frank Sinatra as the eponymous hero.

One word......

***

WOW!

***

R400, that had the three best show dancers of that era, Correia, Battle and Burge. I like Lee Roy but he wasn't in that class.

R396 Fascinating!!

I'm fascinated that Columbia had both Ann and Rita, both great dancers but both very different. Rita was not known as a tapper. .

I wonder if Harry Cohn didn't use Ann as a threat to keep Rita in line. Ann claimed hat Cohn promised her COVER GIRL to lift her out of the 'B's but Cohn gave it to Rita instead.

I nominate this as one of the best threads of 2018. DL at it's best. No wacko stans, no politics or conspiracies- just chatting and trading fun memories/anecdotes.

I'm the one who waited on her a few times at Virgin Megastore. After reading all this I feel so fortunate to have experienced her.

I have to say, I kind of can't see her as Mame. Mame Dennis was "high born" right? Ann, as fab as she was, never struck me that way. Roz Russell was the epitome of Mame. Landsbury was right there too. Of course I CAN imagine Ann being MUCH better than Lucy!

Jack Cole commented on the difference between Ann and Rita when interviewed for John Kobal's book People Will Talk. Jack said Ann didn't have Rita's instinctive marvellous eroticism on screen.

Rita and Fred tap dancing.

[quote]I nominate this as one of the best threads of 2018. DL at it's best. No wacko stans, no politics or conspiracies- just chatting and trading fun memories/anecdotes.

The DL classic Hollywood threads are frau-proof, and the political/conspiracy obsessives and stans also don't bother with them. The DL is really great without those elements, a pity all threads can't be like this.

In that clip were the sounds of taps dubbed in? When Ann is dancing alone it seems impossible that her feet could be tapping that quickly to make that many sounds.

I have wondered the same about a lot of tap. It doesn't seem like the feet are tapping,fast enough to produce the tap sounds. But I really enjoy good tap.

R399 Ricardo was such a hunk. He was devout and married, but I wonder if he ever took up the offers of any of the guys and gals who must have thrown themselves at him. Great ass.

R410, He was married to Loretta Young's sister for decades.

According to an extra on the "Holiday Inn" DVD, dance numbers were typically filmed to pre-recorded playback of the music (and lyrics if any), but no sound was recorded of the dance itself. In post-production, both the pre-recorded soundtrack and a separately recorded taps track were added. In some cases the taps were even performed by a different dancer than the one on screen.

Yes, Hermes Pan would often provide the tapping for Eleanor. I imagine Greer was also a fine Mame Dennis, r404.

[quote]Of course I CAN imagine Ann being MUCH better than Lucy!

I can imagine Mike Mazurki being much better than Lucy.

TCM had an online class (through Ball State U.) that was led by a woman who was a "tap Foley artist." Apparently dubbed-in/looped tapping is pretty much the norm in movies.

I've read that Gwen Verdon dubbed some of the tapping for several early '50s musicals, including Kiss Me, Kate and the Lana Turner Merry Widow in which Verdon also plays a can-can girl at Maxim's. But I don't remember any tap sequence in the latter.

A few years before her death, Ann gave one of those nice MGM stories for someone (Robert Osbourne?) and once the cameras were turned off, the tea was really spilled. The only two Annisms I heard from the chat was her description of Lucille Bremer as "Arthur Freed's pussy" and that Vincente Minnelli was such an on-set flamer "They had to shut the windows to make sure he didn't fly out of there!"

Whatever else, Lucille could really dance. See her "Limehouse Blues" with Astaire on YouTube (the dance starts about 10 minutes from the end).

I can’t believe no one has cont United her name to this thread

Contributed*

I wish we still had sassy, brassy actresses like Ann Miller. Elaine Stritch was really the last of that kind.

Old Shelley Winters was like that. Bette smolder yo a certain extent. Stella Stevens?

[quote]Elaine Stritch was really the last of that kind.

Thank heaven.

Re the tapping dubs, Gwen Verdon said she and Carol Haney dubbed Gene Kelly's tapping in the title number for Singin' in the Rain. They had to use buckets.

Then what’s the whole damn point of tap dancing if the sounds can’t be made with your feet while you are performing?

I can't remember where I heard this - it might have been in CAROL CHANNING: LARGER THAN LIFE. Someone said something like, "Ann Miller was living with LB Mayer at the time. And she was hostess at his dinner parties."

Or maybe it was some other Carol Channing interview? Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Ann and Tommy Rall have a great duet of "Why Can't You Behave?" on YouTube. Tommy is gymnastic and hot.

Tommy Rall was indeed hot as Hell in Kiss Me Kate and his dancing was fantastic. And in 3D, too! Ann and Tommy not only danced their way into your heart but into your lap as well!

In 99% of filmed musical numbers, the music is pre-recorded and the actors sing and dance along with speakers on the soundstage playing the songs. If you didn't do this, you'd hear shitty speaker music in the background and not a studio version. As well, with dancing, you'd hear ever person stomping around on the soundstage. Dancing makes noise, and in a big number, it would be very distracting from the main scene. So all the sounds are added in later, so that when you're watching tap, you're hearing tap, and tap only.

Watch Shakin the Blues Away.

If that were the audio recorded, you'd hear tapping away from you (as she danced away from the mics), dancing nearing you and getting louder (as she approached the mics). It would sound odd, and all those microphones would be in the view of the cameras.

Here’s the Ann Miller & Tommy Rall number from KISS ME KATE.

I saw Ann .Miller explain Mulholland Drive at the Castro Theater.

The musical Mame was written for Mary Martin.

From a Jack "The Voice of Broadway" O'Brian column (June 24, 1969) in The Journal American when Annie was Mame at the Winter Garden.

Backstage visitor told her he was in “Tingle Tangle" on Broadway with her when she was 16 and Ann screamed. "I was only 11!”

Heard that at the end of her life she referred to herself as "the little humpback of Beverly Hills".

Ann didn't have an extension (in ballet terms); don't ever recall her even doing a high kick. She seemed very un-stretched in the legs department.

[quote] The musical Mame was written for Mary Martin.

Not really. Jerry Herman wrote the score thinking of Judy Garland's voice and she was almost a replacement but the producers couldn't get insurance for her. The show was first offered to Russell, who famously replied "I don't eat yesterday's stew." It was then offered to Martin and then every other famous Broadway diva of the day, including Merman, who all passed. The three finalists who didn't pass on it were Angela, Nanette Fabray and Dolores Gray. Fabray refused to audition, which might have cost her the part. I forget what happened with Gray.

R435, Herman said that Garland's people came to them and begged them not to hire her. If she started missing performances, it would jeopardize her concert career at which point, she would have no income at all.

"Ann didn't have an extension. "

That gal had only one phone?!!

She has a wire wig not an extension.

Ann's high kick in ON THE TOWN at 3:27. Vera-Ellen's is higher (of course) but Annie can clearly do it.

Being a tapper (claimed to be the fastest on earth) by definition she kept her feet close to the ground to make the sounds.

Any Montalban info?

-Who’s Ann Miller?

-GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!

(Blackout. End of Act 1)

"She seemed very un-stretched in the legs department. "

Not with me, she didn't.

Check here, r440.....

Thanks! I assume the seats are covered with rich Corinthian leather.

The other big thing you should all note about tap dancing on the screen is that the dancers AREN'T WEARING TAPS.

It wouldn't have looked pretty on the ladies' shoes. I don't think you see them even on Fred's and Gene's shoes. And taps were even thicker and clunkier back then than they are now.

Ann was flexible enough, as you see, she could do a high kick when she felt like it. But she didn't do it with the elegant lines of most dancers.

Because yeah, she wasn't versatile as a dancer. She was a tap dancer, a hoofer. She could do a ballroom number or a bit of jazz dance before she went back to tapping, but she had nothing like the versatility of Vera Ellen or Cyd Charisse. Charisse was amazingly versatile, she could do real-deal ballet and jazz and ballroom and a bit of tap and there was even a flamenco-style number up the thread, and she could do them all very well. She really was the ideal dancer for a company that turned out musicals, as she could do any style and do it better than anyone else. But Charisse lacked spark as an actress, Miller's best quality was her sunny personality, that's the real reason she had a film career.

And Cyd couldn't sing to save her life!

But, but......

I just watched Small Town Girl and wondered in "I've Gotta Hear That Beat" if Ann stepped on any of the musicians on the floor during rehearsals or takes.

Judy Garland would have last longer as the star of a Broadway musical., And certainly not such a demanding show as Mame.

Someone posted this in the theater gossip thread a few minutes ago. The producer of this stock production, John Kenley, has died.

That sounds like he just died, r451. He actually died several years ago.

John Kenley was a hermaphrodite. He spent the summer months as John, and the winter as a woman in Miami.

Looks like Dorothy Arzner.

Annie looks like Darla Hood of Little Rascals.

[quote] At the time, Ann Miller had the longest career of any LIVING Hollywood actor.

You keep saying this, but you're just wrong.

Mickey Rooney was in movies longer than she was throughout her entire life. He was born in 1920 and started in films in 1927, with "Orchids and Ermines" at age seven. She was born in 1923. When she made her first movie in 1934 ("Anne of Green Gables") at age eleven, Mickey had already been making movies for seven years. It was still true when she died.

Ann and the guys on the floor in Small Town Girl.

How did they blow the trumpets?

In her memoir Ann stated that she and her mother were friends with comedian Red Skelton. When she was quite young her and her Mom were about to take a plane and Ann was frightened of planes in case they crashed - a fear of planes. Just before they left Red Skelton gave Ann a package and told her to not open it until they were off the ground and flying. As the plane was flying through the air Ann opened the package and inside was a scrapbook - and pasted instead was photo after photo of gruesome plane crashes. Needless to say she was unnerved nd not amused.

R457, Skelton was an asshole and a porn addict. A story I do love is that Ann used to have late night rehearsals at her house and to get back at her, Skelton used to project porn movies on her garage door.

Abd yet, R450, when Judy Garland played the Palace in 1967, she performed seven nights a week for a month. No night off and no missed shows. She followed that up with a tour of week-long engagements.

They put their lips together, r456......

Red Skelton was so talent-less.

I always thought Red Skelton was such a lovely man when he’d end his tv show with “goodnight and may God bless”.

Red should have died a horrible death for those clown paintings alone.

Never trust a painter of clowns.

Why isn't Ann in any of those MGM studio anniversary shots? I know she wasn't there yet in the mid-40s when the first one was taken, but I don't think she's in the next two either.

Berkeley's "Hands through the walls" bit from SMALL TOWN GIRL may have been swiped from Jack Cole. In the last number(of three) from the Columbia 'B' "Tars and Spars" (1946) , Cole features a surrealistic wall with wildly gesticulating gloved female hands.

These are strange numbers and not amongst Coles best. The second number with Janet Blair (who does a surprisingly good job) is ruined by cascades of streamers (!!!) and the set of the third number seems incredibly fussy. No complaints about the chorus boys in tight white pants. The dancing of Marc Platt is astonishing.

Oooops. Checked and I'm wrong. Annie is present in both anniversary shots.

A snappy Cole number from THE THRILL OF BRAZIL. Ann is sassy but the tapping number is cluttered by the busy chorus and the strange long shots.

MGM 30th anniversary portrait.

Ann at the anniversary.

I don't recognize half of the actors in the 30th anniversary photo. That's partially because it's not magnified enough, I guess.

Can anyone identify them all?

More stars than there are in Heaven....

The only ones still alive are Russ Tamblyn and Jane Powell. The cast bespeaks the waning of the studio system. Compared to the 25th-anniversary photo, there are fewer studio regulars. Some of the people are there for a single film (i.e., Merle Oberon and Helen Traubel from "Deep in My Heart").

Sorry. Veda Pierce, preggers there, is still with us.

I think there was a stink when Errol Flynn was in the film of the 25th anniversary when he wasn't an MGM contract player, but was at the studio making a film at the time - That Forsyte Woman, I believe.

[quote] The other big thing you should all note about tap dancing on the screen is that the dancers AREN'T WEARING TAPS

The next thing you'll be telling us is that Fred Astaire never really danced on the ceiling

Angela Lansbury is in the 25th Anniversary photo and the accompanying video of all them eating lunch at those long trestle tables (that video could be the basis of a thread!) and she's still very much with us.

So that leaves us with former MGM contract players Lansbury, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn and Ann Blyth.

Who’s the queen in white in R469’s photo? Second row, second from right, standing behind Vera-Ellen.

MGM 1953 group photo. Ann is seated in the upper left point of the star. Some of these people really look like they’d rather be anywhere but at this luncheon! See Barbara Stanwyck and Bill Holden a few seats to Ann’s left. Joan C. is over on the right side.

It that Michael Wilding r478?

How did Ann explain Mulholland Drive? That must have been a hoot.

Years ago there was a great story from someone who acted as Ann's dresser for summer stock somewhere. The story culminated with Ann saying in cheerful exasperation to him backstage, "Oh, just shove it in, honey! That's what everybody else does!" But I can't remember the particulars.

Thank you R480, that’s correct. He's in costume for filming of "The Glass Slipper", with Leslie Caron.

R483. If one drew lines between the people in that pic who were fucking each other, I'm sure you'd have a chart like the one that Carrie Fisher hilariously drew in her "Wishful Drinking" show. Granger and Wilding were rumored to be screwing. Then there's Liz, who might getting ready to wed Wilding. Esther and Lamas would later wed. I'm sure there are more nexes.

In R469, the guy in the back row, in the gray sporting jacket, might be hunky John Ericson, still with us, last time I checked. Next to him in Roman drag is smokin' Howard Keel, I believe.

In the star shaped dining table photo, can that be Bette Davis in the right forefront giving the camera the stink eye? Was she at MGM in 1953 for A Catered Affair? Or maybe it's Nina Foch caught in a very unflattering light?

[quote] Next to him in Roman drag is smokin' Howard Keel, I believe.

Probably Keel in Jupiter's Daughter, starring Keel as the Carthaginian Hannibal and Esther Williams. Directed by the wonderful George Sidney (Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, Show Boat, Viva Las Vegas. among many others) it was released in early 1955 and the photo was made in 1954. Jupiter's Darling flopped but is supposedly a campfest and I regret never having seen it.

^ Sorry, Jupiter's Darling, not Daughter.

So are we basically saying that all tap dancing is faked? Why bother if that’s the case? The only reason it is enjoyable is because of the tap sounds but only if the dancer is really producing them herself.

R 417 - In one of those biographies on Judy Garland, MGM contract dancer Dorothy Tuttle said Vincent Minnelli wore green eye shadow, purple lipstick and had tan so they were all shocked that he would marry Judy or anybody.

[quote] So are we basically saying that all tap dancing is faked?

DL, name that logical fallacy!

Go!

The taps were dubbed, the dancing wasn't faked!!!

Christmas time with Ann.

Great. Legs.

R494 thread killer

R494 is the turd in the punchbowl!

R495 and R496 are the flotsam and jetsam of retrograde misogyny.

I'm pretty sure it's just a joke, R497 -- and that's certainly how I meant it -- that the thread was going strong until R494 came along. I thought it would be funny if we piled on...

R497 is obviously a bleeding fucking frau.

It's strange that the same poster who would call a woman a "bleeding fucking frau" is also the same poster who sent Ann Miller a request for an autographed photo and then kept the stationery on which she demanded $5 for postage.

Why the hatred of women?

And to R497, thank you.

It is quite strange how some eldergays will spend so much time and energy talking about old actresses - not just their glamour, but their talents, personal lives etc. - but then turn on a dime and make some cutting comment about or towards an unsuspecting woman. It's sort of depressing how subcultures carve out their own niche but nevertheless absorb so much of the crap from the majority.

Good point. BUT are you sure it's only "eldergays"?

R502, well put.

It's not unique to older gay men but it's way more common than in younger generations. I was reading Paul O'Grady's autobiography and he made much the same point about a drag couple who took him in when he first arrived in London. They had all the golden age glamour types plastered on their walls but the words out of their mouth painted quite a different picture.

Ann Blackglama

R502 not exactly the same, but... I have a gay friend who's really into old TV shows and movies. He's a writer. He and his similar minded friend (creepy author Steve Cox )were working on some TV Land quiz CD ROM thing with Ed Asner. He was telling me about it, and at some point his friend slipped a note into Asner's jacket (which they'd hung up for him) asking if he'd ever seen Mary Tyler Moore shoot insulin between her toes.

He's cracking up telling me this and I said "It's not funny. It's just weird and mean. I said "Scott, why would you DO that? You love these people and their shows. Steve makes his living writing about them" . He had no answer. Maybe there is just a deep anger about being a kind of outcast, and it breeds contempt for those whose work helped you through it.

That reminds me of Gilbert Gottfried bringing up on his podcast the frankly bizarre story that Cesar Romero liked having orange pieces thrown at his bare ass. I think the guest was Lee Meriwether or the Hollywood Squares host. It was rather a non-sequirur but I guess Gottfried was thrilled to have such private info about a star, an example of human vulnerability or pathetic need.

*sequitur.

How do so many freaks on here have the time when they don’t like a particular post to pore over ancient threads to then proudly declare to all of us that they’ve discovered other objectionable posts by the same person. It’s bizarre.

r510 yes yes yes. It's the cunt fraus! Ann Miller was no frau, she was fabulous. All the cunt fraus who infect every thread with their menstrual blood issues need to die in a grease fire.

I think it's clear this great thread has hit its limit.

If I were you I'd move on to the Hedy (Samson and Delilah) Lamarr thread where the veracity of her intelligence is being heatedly debated.

R511, you need to share that post with your therapist.

[quote]How do so many freaks on here have the time when they don’t like a particular post to pore over ancient threads to then proudly declare to all of us that they’ve discovered other objectionable posts by the same person. It’s bizarre.

The Cupcake Troll does this all the time. Total freak.

There's just no more glamour!

That looks like the same outfit wore at the That's Entertainment II party which was televised as a Mike Douglas Show.

A while back, like 25-30 years I was working PR for a condo complex in a major city. We would have cast parties there (don't ask me why, I cannot remember). Ann Miller was playing in Sugar Babies for the local venue for a week or so. As PR person, I had to find room blackening drapes for Ms Miller's apartment. What to do? I went to the Goodwill and got them. Handed them over to the maintennance crew and I guess they were installed. Ann didn't show at the party, however.

BUMP

Leg Up!

Leg Up! with QT

does anyone know if Ann Miller recorded a Mame soundtrack from her Broadway run?

[quote] Weren't Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda classmates at Princeton?

Stewart did go to Princeton, but Fonda went to the University of Minnesota.

[quote]That reminds me of Gilbert Gottfried bringing up on his podcast the frankly bizarre story that Cesar Romero liked having orange pieces thrown at his bare ass.

But then again, who doesn't enjoy that?

[quote]Cesar Romero liked having orange pieces thrown at his bare ass.

He was freaky, but he gave a killer blowjob.

Do you mean chunks of orange or the peel?

[quote] does anyone know if Ann Miller recorded a Mame soundtrack from her Broadway run?

Oh dear!

Maybe Ann didn't come to the party because she was taping an episode of Passover.....