Mitzi Gaynor's TV specials now on Amazon!

Mitzi Zings Into Streaming!

These should be compulsory viewing for DLers of all ages.

No one commands an all-boy dancing chorus quite like The Mitzi. (The quality on Amazon is much higher.)

LET GO!

You're as fabulous as all those dancers put together, R2.

Any more treasure will be gratefully received.

My favorite is Mitzi and 100 Guys -- about half are dancers and the rest are every actor working for NBC in 1975.

Jack Albertson, Michael Landon, Leonard Nimoy, Bill Bixby, William Shatner, Carl Betz, Bob Crane, Mike Connors, etc.

I have never seen so many bad toupees together in one room.

r4 Mitzi's specials were always on CBS, and the 100 guys were from everywhere, not just TV and not just NBC.

Obviously Amazon got a new gay programmer.

Just watched Mitzi and 100 Guys & am wondering if this cringeworthy broadcast single-handedly killed variety shows?!

Watching Mitzi's specials will make every Bob Mackie fan shoot load after load of sequined spunk!

It's amazing how she was washed up for a number of years and then went on to do 8 TV specials that killed it in the ratings.

I love Mitzi. I have faint but fond memories of these network specials as teeny gayling. The Bob Mackie fashions! The production numbers! The sets and lighting! The absence of any other attractive women to steal focus from Mitzi! (Possible exception for the beguiling Suzanne Pleshette, who pops up as a guest star.)

I was surprised to learn that Miss Gaynor was already 37 years young at the time of her first special (MITZI, 1968) and kept at it over the next decade, when she was 48 at the time of MITZI... WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT.

Girlfriend looked GOOD for all those years. A curvy little body for a dancer, with great legs and tits. Just saying.

I love them now but it is amazing how pre-counter culture these 70s entertainment extravaganzas were.

What about MY specials, Amazon?

What about MINE?

[quote]What about MY specials, Amazon?

Joey Heatherton appeared as a guest on variety shows but never had her own TV special.

Same with Lola Falana.

For me the best number is Lola wiggling out up and down the Italian theatre. The theatre is GORGEOUS too

Joey did have her own summer replacement variety show.

[quote]Joey did have her own summer replacement variety show.

Not true.

It was not her own show. She was the costar to Frank Sinatra Jr . Dean Martin's "Gold Diggers" had the top billing.

[quote]For me the best number is Lola wiggling out up and down the Italian theatre. The theatre is GORGEOUS too

Even more incredible is the seamless fluid camera work in that number.

I remember a Joey show, vaguely. I was more interested in 60s and 70s real rock and pop stars. We were kids but into glam rock and quite quickly punk arrived and new wave arrived before I was out of HS.

"Joey and Dad" wasn't Joey's own show?

Heatherton had a 4 episode run in a her own variety show with her father.

She was in a summer replacement with Frank Sinatra Jr.

But she never had her own TV special.

Yeah, yeah but did Mitzi ever punch out a passport clerk?

These specials really should be treated as essential Datalounge urtexts and be discussed thoroughly as we all cycle through them.

luuuuuuuuuuuuv !!!!!!!!

Mitzi wasn't ever really washed up, r9.

//////////

Is that a gang sign, R25?

Feather and Father

Mitzi was saucy, Joey was slutty.

Was she a full gaynor or a half gaynor?

What about me, Dora Hall? I had TV specials, you know.

Shades of Ashley Judd.

I mean Mira Sorvino.

Full, r29. She *always* gave 100%.

[quote]My favorite is Mitzi and 100 Guys -- about half are dancers and the rest are every actor working for NBC in 1975. Jack Albertson, Michael Landon, Leonard Nimoy, Bill Bixby, William Shatner, Carl Betz, Bob Crane, Mike Connors, etc.

It's amazing. I also spotted Monty Hall, Tom Kennedy, Marty Allen (!) and quite a few others. They kinda kick-shuffled in the background while Mitzi's GAY FROM SPACE chorus boys did the hard work in the foreground.

[quote] I also spotted Monty Hall, Tom Kennedy, Marty Allen (!) and quite a few others.

Jim McKrell was also among the 100 men! I trust at least one game show host was excluded. In case a game show broke out, that is.

[quote]Mitzi wasn't ever really washed up,

1n 1958 with South Pacific she was A list but her film career was over by the early 60s. She made no films of importance after starring in SP.. She turned to doing an act in Las Vegas. TV appearances were rare.

Maybe not washed up exactly but she was not part of the scene. If you were going to cast a musical film you'd call Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds or Shirley MacLaine.

Her special in 1968 totally revived her career.

Mitzi was simultaneously fabulous as a presence but terrible as a dancer, and this amply shows.

^ She wasn't terrible as a dancer at all. She was in her 40s when she filmed that

Mitzi for new Datalounge icon!

I loved her too-tight leotard bottoms. They made her look big-boxed and amply seated.

But not in this photo.

Here she just looks demented.

R37 Why in the world are you basing her dancing abilities on that clip, performed when she was 42 years old?

Watch her numbers in Les Girls and report back to us.

In the dance department she was no Vera Ellen but she held her own.

Big-Box Mitzi!

If you meant washed up in films, r36, then yes. But she was a big star in Vegas and then on to the TV Specials. That's what I meant when I said she wasn't ever really washed up. And she's always honest about SP giving her career the longevity it had.

Get little Miss Vera-Ellen to sing a score written for Barbara friggin' Cook, r41!

If she were going to dance solo on TV at that age, she should have been better at it.

SP = sugary pussy?

Why?

[quote]If she were going to dance solo on TV at that age, she should have been better at it.

Well listen to her!

If Mitzi Gaynor was so bad at it, CBS and the public sure didn't think so.

Name another female star who was given her own TV special every year for 8 years.

Wasn't Mitzi a performer on the same Ed Sullivan show where the Beatles made their US debut? That was 1964, I think, so she was never really washed up. Her TV appearances remained high profile.

R49 She was on the Beatles' second appearance on the show.

Those Beatles appearances did not attract big stars. They stayed away. Why would you want to be upstaged? People were waiting to see the Beatles. The others were just in the way.

And that second episode was broadcast from The Deauville in Miami where Gaynor happened to be doing her show.

Keep trying but Gaynor had a healthy stage career after her movie career ended. That live career was bolstered by her TV appearances.

She's no Connie Francis.

R52 Who?

[quote]That live career was bolstered by her TV appearances.

Between the ES appearance in 1964 and the Oscar number in 1967...what TV show did she appear in?

*shows

R54 here's a pretty solid list of Mitzi's TV appearances, including the specials.

[quote] If Mitzi Gaynor was so bad at it, CBS and the public sure didn't think so. Name another female star who was given her own TV special every year for 8 years.

Oh give us a break, Miss Stan.

Bob Hope was given comedy specials on NBC for decades and decades--from 1950 until 1996. That certainly didn't mean he was funny in them in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.

Go light some votive candles in your Mitzi shrine

Mitzi, Marilyn and Donald in There's No Business Like Show Business.

Wake me when they start streaming Lola Heatherton specials. She's the Gold Standard!

R57 Not only did Hope do all those specials he also hosted the Oscars year after year.

And there was good reason for that, no matter what you or I think of him,

R56 Thanks.

[quote]Jack Albertson, Michael Landon, Leonard Nimoy, Bill Bixby, William Shatner, Carl Betz, Bob Crane, Mike Connors, etc. I have never seen so many bad toupees together in one room.

More hairy rugs than at a Kaye Ballard potluck!

Mitzhi Zhingsh into Shpring

R56, the list of TV appearances is notable to me because is lacks any work on episodic programs... there's no work on Mannix, or Cannon, where she'd be "Special Guest Appearance by". For all of her song and dance work, there isn't even a Carol Burnett episode.

I'm going to assume this was a decision she made, but it looks so strange. She worked steadily for decades, Carson seemed to enjoy her company on TTS, so she being blacklisted in any way...

Sharon Gless mentioned that her guest work worked against her getting her own series. Perhaps Mitzi had that in mind and hence she turned down the Gene Barry programme etc.

Mitzi always made money and lived well from Vegas and touring her act (produced by her husband so they double dipped in the $ department) on the summer tent circuit (Kenley and Guber-Gross et al), and then later, large performing arts centers as those began to pop up. Those venues certainly paid her more than she'd have made doing a Broadway show. As low end as it sounds, and as much as it's not remembered today or valued, that kind of live work (back then) paid her more per week than her contract work at the film studios, even.

She didn't need to do a scale plus 10% Love Boat/Fantasy Island guest shot, and she wasn't the Mannix/Cannon/Perry Mason/Ironside/Bonanza type. The positive reception and ratings for each annual special (each program was a cash windfall--again, produced by her husband) gave her the exposure to book the next year's touring, charts paid for by the special became charts she'd use in her act, and the cycle repeated annually. Sometimes it would go in reverse--she'd hone something on the road, and then slot it into a special.

She's made more in royalties from the South Pacific soundtrack than she did for appearing in the film itself.

Did Roz Russell get royalties from the GYPSY soundtrack? And did Lisa Kirk not?

Great details, R66.

The business has changed so much over the past 40-50 years.

Roz Russell did most of her own singing in GYPSY, R67, she insisted on it. Only a few high notes were dubbed.

That's Roz' story. The truth, otoh...

R66, that's a very nice and non-bitchy explanation. As R68 said, the industry changed so radically in the later 70s.

I think Mitzi, years ago was a "broad" is old-fashioned definition... able to keep up with the boys, not a pushover, sexy, who men appreciated and lusted after. I wonder if there are any broads in Hollywood today...

Mitzi is a broad but that certainly wasn't her persona in the movies. She may have had a better movie career if she'd been able to incorporate her own personality into her acting roles.

But was she broad where a broad should be broad?

Mitzi was--and is--a great, old-school broad. Follow her on Twitter!

I think she would have had a much bigger and longer film career had she entered the biz earlier: the 1930s or even the 1940s, when the studio system was thriving. The old studios would have found the right projects for her, probably musicals but also romantic comedies (even screwball comedies) that would have made the most of her varied skill set.

Mitzi was always slyly funny and sexy, despite her wholesome appearance. That didn't really come across in SOUTH PACIFIC or some other roles.

the 1967 Oscars

[quote]Did Roz Russell get royalties from the GYPSY soundtrack? And did Lisa Kirk not?

Lisa Kirk was able to live comfortably for the rest of her life just on her husband's royalties from writing "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...)

LISA with an S

[quote]She's made more in royalties from the South Pacific soundtrack than she did for appearing in the film itself.

Sources please.

R78 I knew her. She was a friend. And so I'll leave it at that.

But besides: what's so hard to understand about a song like that being a goldmine in royalties?

Ooops sorry R78! I was rushing when I read your post and thought you were asking about Lisa Kirk. My apologies.

Here she is!

Here she is boys!

Fabulous gams...

I remember my grandparents going to Vegas to see Mitzi. Her show was a big deal.

Mitzi just had pizzazz....

Mitzi didn't quit films, they quit her "because she was ordinary in them." She seems very self-aware and showbiz savvy.

[quote] Bob Hope was given comedy specials on NBC for decades and decades--from 1950 until 1996. That certainly didn't mean he was funny in them in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.

Bob Hope was given specials because of the special contract he was given. During radio NBC was home to the biggest stars, Hope, Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, etc. CBS was the second tier. As radio was winding down and tv was starting up, CBS went on a talent raid. They stole a number of NBC's biggest stars. In order to keep Hope NBC gave him an unprecedented lifetime contract, which ended up lasting 60 years. Also, his specials continued to be ratings winners. His 90th Birthday special in 1993, won an Emmy and still received a 25% share. Also due to his USO shows, veterans and their families felt a very strong connection to and appreciation for him. Bob Hope, an immigrant, became considered as American as baseball and apple pie. Cancelling him would be like cancelling Uncle Sam.

I'm watching Mitzi's specials right now and they are really good. They are a perfect example of when stars were expected to be multi-talented. In the first one, she tackles several different musical genres, does great dancing, and is really good at comedy. I would imagine the networks tried to get her to do a weekly show. The fact that she didn't have one of those special lifetime contracts and was still asked to keep doing specials is testament to her talent and popularity.

When I was a kid and they first aired, I found her specials to be very uncool and kind of embarrassing.

Now I enjoy them. What does that mean?

Where's the Lynda Carter Specials? She wa also draped in Bob Mackie!

Her daughter, Gloria, would be so proud.

I have a good friend who's been giving drag the good ol' college try for about 30 years. Her stage name is Lotta Crabtree!

If you don’t want to read long posts about individual specials, keep scrolling. But I thought it might be fun as I watch them to write them up for my friends at the DL. I was the OP of the Linda Lavin “Alice” theme song discussion, and Mitzi’s specials certainly rate similar coverage. There’s some general commentary in this one too.

MITZI: WHAT’S HOT, WHAT’S NOT (CBS, 1978 – sponsored by Sears)

Her first name is always in the title of the special, and that’s followed by “starring Mitzi Gaynor” to leave no doubt about who the star is here. Produced by her husband Jack Bean, Mitzi and Jack had near-total control over these shows, with their only limit being the budget constraints from the sponsor and network. The theme of this one is current and timeless trends—what’s hot, what’s not.

This was the final special, and one can only wonder if they knew it would be the last when they were taping, as it’s clear where the money went and where it didn’t. It has lavishness and economy at the same time. It’s directed by Tony Charmoli and Mitzi’s costumes are Bob Mackie.

GUEST STARS: Gavin McLeod (from Love Boat), John McCook (from The Young and the Restless), and Benny Goodman (King of Swing). As others have noted in the thread, there’s never anyone who can give Mitzi a run for her money in the song-and-dance department. Any guest at a similar or greater level of musical accomplishment will almost certainly be much older and/or from a totally different world than what she does (i.e. Goodman). For contrast, look at Judy Garland on her weekly series, standing toe-to-toe with Merman, Streisand, Liza, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, Diahann Carroll, Mickey Rooney, and more as just another week’s work. Mitzi never, ever has anyone like that as a major guest star.

SETS are often very spare and clean looking, to leave room for dancing but probably also as a cost-cutting measure. Classic 60s-70s TV special meets Vegas glitz. The lighting in the specials is particularly creative and flattering, usually either matching or contrasting the color of Gaynor’s outfit of the moment.

MUSIC AND ORCHESTRATIONS: notice how many genuinely contemporary songs are included in each show. It’s wild to think of a woman in her 40s during this era singing and shaking her kiester to this music on national television at a time when there were really only three networks, as naked as the censors would allow. The orchestrations do a good job of splitting the difference between a contemporary sound (particularly in the rhythm section) and a Broadway by way of Vegas brassiness. Gaynor actually doesn’t sing that high, with most songs climaxing around G-A-Bb above middle C, but because she leads with a headtone or a mix and rarely does a true belt, it sounds higher than it is. I like her voice, even though there are occasional wayward notes that would get “fixed” today. Her pleasant gurgle is a nice alternative to the usual array of thick-voiced shouty belters who usually command this type of show.

COSTUMES: Bob Mackie is one of the main geniuses of these shows, and you can count on Mitzi to have at least a dozen outfits per show, plus several wigs and/or hairstyles, her spider lashes and jewelry. Each special is a master class in design, and particularly design for performers. He usually runs through the entire color palette for her outfits as well as a variety of ornamentation, necklines, sleeve lengths and styles, and hem lengths. There’ll usually be a period number or two as well, which lets him do a contemporary Mackie variation on historical styles. Finally, you can count on copious amount of sheer or stretch fabric, usually with something shiny or sparkly attached to it, meticulously matched to Mitzi’s flesh tone to give a peek-a-boo illusion of seeking a lot of skin when actually she’s pretty well covered…she was 47 when she did this special and she has the shapely figure and solid body of a lifelong dancer. There’s plenty of leg and cleavage and shaking of the titties and bumping and grinding the booty. (continued)

Is this your friend, R91?

But wait there's more! WHAT'S HOT-WHAT'S NOT continued...

SHOW AND COSTUME RUNDOWN: After a one-minute teaser and opening credits, the first number is a four-minute instrumental of the public domain song “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” One less music clearance to pay for! There are some tv camera effects on the image (Charmoli was fond of these) that would have looked new at the time, and Gaynor wears four different Bob Mackie costumes in this routine alone: a white and silver off the shoulder spangled leotard with long fringe on the lower half, a red sequin dress, a long sleeve contemporary style red fitted zippered dress, and a yellow-orange floor-length fringe dress that matches the flame theme of the set. The choreography shows that Gaynor can still kick and turn, the boys are in red and there’s a wonderful moment when the cast does a kick line through the gold mylar curtain.

After opening chat, Mitzi and McCook sing a special material song “Love Will Find a Way” (probably by Marvin Laird) that works in the title of several soap operas. This is his main moment in the special; the guest stars are barely in the show.

McLeod’s main moment is up next: a comedy skit that’s not too painful (nor is it funny) with Mitzi. They’re an everyday couple going to a Beverly Hills restaurant, Jimmy’s, where she doesn’t know how to read the French menu and he’s worried about the prices.

There’s an eight-minute segment about The History of the Dance. It starts with Mitzi in a black formal dress “conducting” the boys as if they were an orchestra, then she wears a different period outfit and dances a Grecian dance, the gavotte, waltz, a Charleston segment cut-and-pasted from the 20’s special, and the Hustle (to disco-fied versions of a bunch of public domain songs), with each dance in a different outfit, the cyclorama lit with different colors, and the boys adding pieces to their basic black outfits. Most of the specials have a medley of dances—often with little to no singing--built around a theme, and these segments pass a big chunk of time pleasantly and quickly and are engaging without being too taxing for the viewer or Mitzi’s dance ability.

The centerpiece of this special is a lengthy and largely very well done twelve-minute jazzy set built around the presence of Benny Goodman. With different instrumentalists on set pieces of stylized scaffolding, and Mitzi in a spangled plum dress with a removable jacket, she sings “Satin Doll” with special lyrics to bring on 69 year old Benny Goodman, Mitzi even scats a bit in her duet with BG on “I’m Hip”. Goodman does a clarinet solo with the combo, and that’s the last we see of him. Mitzi takes off the jacket and sits atop the piano to do a medley of “Lover Man/If I Had You/It All Depends On You” that is some of the best singing she does in all of the specials. She encores with an uptempo mashup of “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and Natalie Cole’s “Lovers”. The purple, black and white color scheme looks great.

3 of 3 on WHAT'S HOT-WHAT'S NOT...

There’s a short song and comedy segment that doesn’t quite land with McCook and McLeod describing the ideal hot woman while Mitzi is upstage in a simple black dress silently miming trying to be all the things on their list. They finish with the men singing part of Cole Porter’s “You’re Sensational.”

We then go immediately into the climactic “eleven o’clock” number. Again it’s several songs and sets with a common theme. It’s over eleven minutes long, and it’s built around Tutankhamun/the King Tut exhibit. In almost every special, Mitzi has a solo dance to a slow, quiet ballad. Here, she’s on top of a glass box with a panther inside, wearing a near-nude-look Egyptian-esque Mackie costume that was actually censored by the network (Amazon shows the uncensored version) dancing a sensual but occasionally comic cooch dance to “Lazy River.” We then go into an Egyptian-themed disco—they spent money on THIS set--where she’s changed to a white Cher-like outfit with headdress, feathers, and sequins. We get disco versions of Steve Miller’s “Swingtown”, a green sheer cape with headdress for a disco version of the 1920s hit “The Desert Song”, the boys have a number to Chic’s “Dance, Dance, Dance” that Mitzi joins, shedding the cape to show a sparkly green fringe getup, and it all wraps up with the comic “Tutankhamun” song. No nostalgia here!

Mitzi’s closing solo is in front of a reconfiguration of the opening number set, wearing a clear sequined soft pastel pink and lavender long sleeve, floor-length gown singing Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You.” She has a dancer’s vocabulary of gesture, and she uses it effectively here; it would look like too much on someone else. It’s interesting that she sings a song usually done as a lament with a smile on her face, with the lyrics almost as a statement of her covenant with the audience (thus “I’m finding it hard leaving your love behind me” is saying “I don’t want to end the show and go home because you’ve been such a great audience”). After her spoken conclusion, she tags with a bit of the theme song of her act and the specials, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” In most specials she tells the audience “I love you” and says goodnight, and she does that here. We then see her freestyle dancing in shadow to a big-band version of “Sunshine” throughout the credits.

Of the 51 minutes of this special, about 37 minutes are solo Mitzi or Mitzi and boys. Overall this one is fun; Mitzi far outshines her guest stars, but that was the plan all along, as their appearances are fleeting and they have the weakest material. Some of her most enjoyable work can be found in this special.

TL:DR – four things to watch in this special: the opening number, the jazz set, the Tut sequence, and the closing. Enjoy!

Je vous adore, R92.

R92, is this something you wrote for an internet blog and just copying here, or are you writing this in real time just for DL? If the latter, I'm impressed.

Someone had to realize that "Mitzi and 100 Guys" sounds like a porno right?

I assume they purposely titled it that for the titillation, r98.

Polite company did not talk about (or acknowledge) pornos in 1975.

The early 1970s(1969-84) was when Porn went mainstream, a time called Porn Chic. Deep Throat became a huge hit and The Devil in Miss Jones was the seventh most successful film of 1973.

You didn't talk about (or acknowledge) the *implication*, r100, but it was still there. Just unacknowledged.

[quote]I was the OP of the Linda Lavin “Alice” theme song discussion

Thank you! I LOVED that thorough exegesis of Linda Lavin's different sha-ba-doo-wah vocal takes over 9 seasons.

Your Mitzi coverage looks like a must as well.

Mitzi's aforementioned Egyptian disco number.

R92, thank you for your service!

I was the OP of the Linda Lavin “Alice” theme song discussion

That thread is the one that hooked me on DL. A classic!

I'd have to say I imagine her shows rated high with men across the board. She was sexy for all the straight guys, and for the gays she was campy and surrounded by hot presumably gay dancers.

The girl knew to stay in her own lane.

[quote] Someone had to realize that "Mitzi and 100 Guys" sounds like a porno right?

Sure, but everyone knew the 100 guys would all be doing each other.

[quote] She was sexy for all the straight guys

Only a gay guy would think a straight guy would find a 48 year old Mitzi Gaynor sexy.

Actually 1975 was in the middle of the so-called "porno chic" era, polite company most definitely spoke about it.

She wore this in her 2nd special apparently. Mitzi got away with a lot!

All an illusion, r111...

There's an entire thread on that dress.

I can't believe I missed that, thanks r2!

R109 with the censorship of television in the 1970s Mitzi’s many barely there coustumes had to have been considered sexy. Also, she might’ve been in her forties but she didn’t look it.

r109 has no clue that there are straight men who are hot for older women just like there are gays into daddies, r115.

There have to have been a lot of men Mitzi's age who thought she was hot.

That as well, r117.

[quote]Polite company did not talk about (or acknowledge) pornos in 1975.

You obviously weren't around back then.

Harry Reams, Linda Lovelace, Marilyn Chambers, "Oh Calcutta", Plato's Retreat, "Deep Throat" etc.

Look them up.

[quote]Only a gay guy would think a straight guy would find a 48 year old Mitzi Gaynor sexy.

I saw Gaynor's stage show in 1975 or 76 at the Westbury. I don't remember much, but what I do remember is how incredible her body was, how beautiful she was.

She'd have been a great Roxie.

Thanks for all the feedback about the WHAT’S HOT-WHAT’S NOT write-up and the memories of the ALICE theme song thread! Your kind words fill my mother’s basement with warmth.

Last night I decided to watch the third of the eight specials available on Amazon, MITZI…THE FIRST TIME (1973). Directed by John Moffitt and choreographed by Bob Sidney. Their work is competent but not as exciting as the later specials. You see, by his absence here, what a key piece of the puzzle Tony Charmoli was. He directed and choreographed the five specials that followed this one, and those all have higher energy, more showmanship and energy and creativity than this one. Charmoli also directed and choreographed WOMAN OF THE YEAR on Broadway w/Bacall.

GUEST STARS: Ken Berry, Mr. Dan Dailey (yes, he’s billed that way), and Mike Connors. So we’ve got two dancers who sing, but neither is going to eclipse Mitzi in the way a reunion with her LES GIRLS co-star (Gene Kelly) might. Berry can do anything Mitzi can and more, but he isn’t a bigger star; Academy Award nominee Dailey might have been a bigger star at one time, but he is much older here, still graceful and game, and there’s a nostalgia factor as he was in MG’s first movie (MY BLUE HEAVEN) and played her dad in THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. Connors is the novelty.

The theme here is First Times, as it’s Mitzi’s first special for Kraft. Also, there are no chorus boys at all, it’s just the four stars, and they all get plenty of screen time, so this one doesn’t have the all-Mitzi all-the-time feel of WHAT’S HOT-WHAT’S NOT.

SHOW RUNDOWN: Mitzi opens with a bit of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and sounds wonderful. She’s on the main set, which ends up being lit a variety of colors throughout and photographed from several angles for variety. She also goes through a half-dozen fabulous Mackie outfits just in the intro! She does a down-and-dirty “Alice Blue Gown” with a tearaway dress and lace boa. It’s an odd choice to do a hootchie routine like this to a song like that, and it doesn’t quite land. Also, the choreography isn’t much.

She introduces her guest stars in a technologically enhanced “Them There Eyes” with a vintage tv gimmick that just shows the eyes of the men at first before revealing them full-face. It ends up with all four on stage talking about their connection to Mitzi and singing together to wrap up the number.

The first extended sequence “See Your Future” has “kids” Berry and Gaynor going into different doors in a fun house where Dailey is the barker, to see into the future of their lives as a couple together. We see “The First Dance” and they do a lovely “I’m All Smiles” from THE YEARLING. Then “The First Night” of the wedding, they do Dory Previn’s “Yada Yada” where Mitzi wants the D, “When I’m Sixty-Four” as a duet over the phone built around the birth of “The First Grandchild” to everyday parents Ken and Mitzi, who do exercises in regular clothes but then end up doing a short swing dance.

Mike Connors alternates between reciting and a bit of singing in a rendition of Bobby Goldsboro’s “Watching Scotty Grow.” It’s quiet and well-acted, and it showcases his strengths. (continued)

More MITZI...THE FIRST TIME

We flashback to “young Mitzi” writing her “First Fan Letter” to Dan Dailey. Dailey and Gaynor then dance a skillful ballroom number to a mashup of “It Had To Be You” and “You Are My Lucky Star” is the highlight of the special. They look great and sing and dance well, even if the steps aren’t the most complicated, and they have chemistry.

Mitzi has a long Sports dancing and singing sequence with a scoreboard as the background. She does cheerleading moves and sports miming plus some regular dancing…it’s fine. The scoreboard comes back later.

Next is a longer sequence that puts multiple songs together, each on a different set, with the actors reminiscing on a dressing room set about how they got into show business. The other actors play roles within the sequences.

1) Mike Connors remembers Fresno: All four do “A Sailor’s Not a Sailor” from …SHOW BUSINESS, and it’s fun to see and hear that again with this cast.

2) Ken Berry remembers Moline, IL: Berry and Connors do a duet as a pair of acrobats.

3) Dan Dailey remembers the first musical he ever saw: here’s Mitzi’s solo ballad song and dance, “Limehouse Blues” in a gilded cage, which she escapes to do a fan dance at a brighter tempo, in an all white Mackie outfit with a headdress.

Then it turns out the four of them are getting ready for a commercial for the product Chic Soap and they sing a comic special material song about its virtues.

Finally, we close with Mitzi solo doing all of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” She sings it exceptionally well and with deep feeling.

She wraps up in front of the scoreboard, thanking the guests and getting one last gimmick shot in and the credits roll on the scoreboard. Then as a button she says a final goodnight in each of the eight dresses we saw in the beginning.

TL:DR – watch the duet with Dailey and the closing solo if you just want the highlights, otherwise watch it all to pleasantly pass the time, especially if you have any affection for the well-chosen guest stars.

Woman of the Year was directed by Robert Moore, r122. Charmoli choreographed.

Is that Charmoli with Mitzi in Miami? The short guy on the left?

The Tony Charmoli Dancers

Some hard faced ladies in that line.

[quote] Mr. Dan Dailey (yes, he’s billed that way),

I think it was clear in that special that she really respected him. I imagine he must have treated her very well on her first film and she wanted to repay that kindness by giving him the sort of billing she felt he deserved. Honestly, it makes me like her even more.

Did Dailey add the Mr because "Dan" is too... young sounding?

Thank you for the thorough unpacking of these cultural DL touchstones!

Too bad Mitzi zinging into spring wasn't followed by "Mitzi Falls Into Fall." She could have sang "Autumn Leaves" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree," with a big production number of Earth, Wind and Fire's "September" for the younger set.

R129 I don't think it was something he requested he didn't receive the "Barbara Stanwyck" treatment on his then recent sitcom The Governor and J.J. It seems more likely to be something Mitzi offered or insisted he be given.

[quote]Too bad Mitzi zinging into spring wasn't followed by "Mitzi Falls Into Fall."

Followed by "Mitzi Wiggles into Winter".

Was Dan Dailey the one who enjoyed cross dressing in his private life?

r133 Well, who doesn't?

R4, I'm watching [italic]Mitzi ... and 100 Guys[/italic] right now. She just now wound up the intro number, wherein Marty Allen was lying on the floor.

Not sure who this Mitzi chick is

But she's the spittin' image of Lurleen Tuttle

Lurleen at her finest

The MA100G finale: WILLIAM SHATNER! GREG MORRIS! LYLE WAGGONER! BOB HOPE! [bold]AND MORE!!![/bold] line up to kiss Miss Gaynor ...

That finale mainly makes me think of herpes, R138

r136 and r137 are such big fans that they don't even know that her name was LURENE, not Lurleen.

Mitzi boldly presenting l'orteil du chameau.

After Mitzi lost her specials, her PR firm started sending out releases about other performers who were getting them with negative notices, i.e. Linda Lavin is no Mitzi Gaynor.

[quote]are such big fans that they don't even know that her name was LURENE, not Lurleen.

We called her "Lurleen" - it was a inside joke.

She was a walking streak of sex, mmmmmm

Who is this Mitzi gal?

And why does she have the world's biggest Camel Toe?

[quote]And why does she have the world's biggest Camel Toe?

Her tits are really uneven too