Pam Garner born circa 1937

Pam Garner was one of the many jazz singers who had a brief moment of fame in the 1950s and early sixties then faded, not because they ceased to be good but because popular music changed so radically.

According to liner notes Pam Garner was Born in Big Spring, Texas circa 1937, but Hollywood was her home since 1943 when she was 8 years old. After studying voice under Marie Rubens and Dr. Lillian Goodman in Los Angeles, she began her Californian career working in a mortgage company during the day and making her first professional appearance singing country and western songs on the local Radio Station KFWB with Stuart Hamblen. 

There is not much information regarding her early years, even if Pam Garner was her actual name or a stage name,  but she is mentioned many times in Billboard magazine. In June 1953 she is appearing in the chorus line at the Sands and by November that year she is mentioned as a budding young “thrush” who has been playing a series of dates at Victorille. 1956 finds her recording “Bell Bottom Blues” for the budget record label Tops. Yet her next recording is an album during 1958 for Coral Records titled “Pam Garner Sings Quietly” with an orchestra conducted by Charles Dant. 

                                                                

The liner notes state that Pam, a new engaging singer was all the more refreshing to hear and contemplate in the light of the current plethora of electronically created stars. Though a good portion of any contemporary listening audience takes to gimmicks to clam an insatiable appetite for the new and different, there are those who cast their votes for the artist who gives herself and communicates on the strength of sensitivity and talent alone. It is to this stable that Pam Garner appeals. 

She sings honestly and well, using her vocal and emotional equipment with a maturity and polish befitting an artist older and more experienced. And much to the listener’s satisfaction, Miss Garner sings in tune, something of a rarity for girl singers these days. A single was also released from the album followed by a 1959 pairing with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. During that year she had a guest spot on the Steve Allen show. With the exception of a country-wide tour with the Chuck Cabot band, she has worked excusively as a “single”, concentrating her activities in California, appearing on the Earl Grant Show, Stars of Jazz, The Lawrence Welk Show, and others.  

During January 1960 Pam spent a two week engagement at Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills. An A&R executive signs her for Columbia records and during February she records her second album “Pam Sings Ballads For Broken Hearts” with an orchestra directed by a young John Williams. After this a long lost Italian Cinebox/ Scpotone film from 1962 appears on DVD. But then her internet trail comes to a grinding halt. Little is known about Pam Garner after the early 1960s. The limited public information about her post-singing career has led to questions and speculation among some fans. Yet although her career was quite short and did not achieve great commercial success, she is still remembered for her warm voice and graceful performing style. 

(Edited from Billboard magazine, Album liner notes  and Discogs)

 Now usually I only post one video, but in this case I have opted for two. In 1959, Pam Garner appeared on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show and performed "The Girl With The Long Black Hair," the vocal version of the theme from the TV series Richard Diamond, Private Detective. 

My second video is Pam Garner - Take Me to Disneyland. Now, first off, nothing is known about this curiosity. It is assumed that may be Pam Garner riding the rails as it certainly looks like her, but this cannot be guaranteed. One would suppose that anything Disney would be clearly documented so everyone would know about every little detail. Not so. The title card for this Scopitone video credits the song to "Sherman-Ellis". In fact the tune was copyrighted in '62. by Sherman K. Ellis, a retired ad exec who got into the music biz in the mid fifties and helmed the Sherm Ellis Orchestra until he passed in 1964.

Earl Scott born 9 September 1936

Earl Scott (born September 9, 1936 – July 12, 2024*) was an American country music singer. He was the uncle of singer John Batdorf, who has recorded in both Batdorf & Rodney and Silver. 

Earl Scott, was born Earl Batdorf in Youngstown, Ohio. His older brother Jack recorded under the name of Jack Lionell. Earl was known as "Scotty" and his brother Jack got him interested in the guitar which they say was as common as the 'kitchen stove' at their home. 

When he was 18 years old, his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He began his professional career when his brother Jack had organized a band and was playing a local club, encouraged Earl to sing with the group. He recorded four sides with the Sky record label in 1958 and two sides for Chescamp the following year. Richie Johnson heard him sing, agreed to become his personal manager and helped him get a recording contract with D records and Hap Records in 1961, but those records only had mediocre success. 

                                    

In 1962, Dave Kapp signed him to a contract with the new Kapp records label. He got his feet wet with Kapp on the charts with a tune called "From a Jack To A Joker To A Clown", then followed that up with "Then A Tear Fell" that was backed with "Save A Minute" that reached  No. 8 on Hot Country Songs. Then in 1963 Shelby Singleton of Mercury Records took him under his wings and they released "Loose Lips" b/w "Guess I'll Never Learn". That record got him a lot of attention. 

During 1964 he was signed to Decca Records and recorded 11 singles until 1968. He would have four additional charting singles up into 1968 before his charting days came to an end. In 1969 he recorded two singles for Stop records. His last one was issued in 1970. Earl got to make a few guest appearances on the WSM Grand Ole Opry. He was also invited to appear on Ernest Tubb's Midnight Jamboree at his record shop. His taste in stage clothes got him featured in a national magazine. At one time Earl was affiliated with the Wilburn Brothers and Don Helms' Wil-Helm agency. 

He was a member of the Country Music Festival of Colorado, which was a country-based organization and active in the late 1960’s. But like so many country singers in that era Earl never attained star status. This is where Earl’s trail goes cold. I cannot find any mention of him on the web after 1971 until according to Kim Sloans web site, Earl died in July12, 2024. *I cannot find any confirmation about this date. 

(Scarce information edited from Hillbilly Music, Kim Sloan & Rocky 52. Also some sources incorrectly state that he was the brother of Canadian singer Jack Scott) Any more information will be greatly welcomed.

Patsy Cline born 8 September 1932

Patsy Cline (born Virginia Patterson Hensley; September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963) was an American singer. One of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century, she was known as one of the first country music artists to successfully cross over into pop music. 

She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley, in a Winchester hospital. Her parents, forty-three-year-old Samuel Lawrence Hensley, a blacksmith, and his second wife, sixteen-year-old Hilda Virginia Patterson Hensley, had married six days before the birth. Until 1937 Hensley lived on her paternal grandparents’ farm near Elkton and with her maternal grandparents in Gore, just outside Winchester in Frederick County. The Hensley family moved nineteen times in sixteen years to various towns in the Shenandoah Valley, including Lexington, and during World War II to Portsmouth. They had returned to Winchester by 1948, when Samuel Hensley deserted his wife and three children. 

Hensley quit school shortly after her sixteenth birthday and to help support her family began working, first in a poultry plant and then later at a bus depot and as a soda clerk at a drugstore. She also began singing professionally at night and on weekends to supplement the money her mother made as a seamstress. Known in her youth as “Ginny,” During the next few years Hensley won amateur contests. She sang both country and western tunes and popular standards on local radio stations, and performed with a number of bands. 

In September 1952 Hensley auditioned for the country bandleader Clarence William “Bill” Peer, who had a radio show on a station in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Peer liked what he heard, hired her full-time to sing with his Melody Boys and Girls on the Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington music circuit, and gave her the stage name of Patsy. On March 7, 1953, she married Gerald E. Cline, the divorced son of a wealthy contractor from Frederick, Maryland. Virginia Patterson Hensley thereafter became known as Patsy Cline. 

By the time she had reached her early 20s, Cline was on her way toward country music stardom. She first recorded on the Four Star label in 1954 and Coal in 1955, but was unsuccessful, although it was produced by the former bandleader Owen Bradley, who was helping create what became the Nashville Sound, a synthesis of country and popular music designed to attract a mass audience. Cline initially resisted his attempts to tone down her “hillbilly” sound with pop arrangements for which he thought her voice was better suited. In 1954 Cline began a series of guest appearances on Town and Country Time, the half-hour daily music-variety television program of Connie Barriott Gay. 

                                     

                                    

This exposure won Cline a booking on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a televised variety show and talent competition, and on January 21, 1957, she won the competition by singing “Walkin’ After Midnight.” The publicity from this appearance increased her record sales. Gerald Cline, jealous of his wife’s success and frustrated that she did not stay at home like a traditional housewife, separated from Patsy Cline, and the childless couple divorced in Maryland on March 28, 1957. Cline had met Charles Allen Dick, a linotype operator for the local newspaper, at a Berryville dance in April 1956. They married on September 15, 1957, and had one daughter and one son. 

Cline began appearing on the radio and on Town and Country Jamboree, a local television variety show that was broadcast every Saturday night from Capitol Arena in Washington, D.C. Cline joined the Grand Ole Opry as a regular cast member in January 1960. She began to record more songs and performed to supplement the income from her husband’s printing job. The couple struggled until January 1961, when Decca released “I Fall to Pieces.” This Cline-Bradley masterwork topped the country chart and reached the twelfth spot on the pop chart. In June, Cline was critically injured in an automobile accident but had returned to the studio by August, when she recorded “Crazy,” a song written by Willie Nelson that rose to second place on the country chart and ninth place on the pop chart. In December 1961 she recorded “She’s Got You,” which became her second number-one country hit. 

Achieving newfound success, Cline won several outstanding female country singer awards during the next two years. Beginning in January 1962 she frequently appeared as the second-billed performer in a concert tour organized by Johnny Cash that also featured June Carter and George Jones. Her touring schedule included television performances on American Bandstand and the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show as well as concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Mint Casino in Las Vegas. By early in 1963 she had recorded more than 100 songs. Her well-controlled, instantly recognizable voice wrung the last drop of emotion from every lyric. 

On March 5, 1963, while flying home to Nashville after a benefit concert in Kansas City, Missouri, in a plane piloted by her manager, Patsy Cline and the country music luminaries Lloyd Estel “Cowboy” Copas and Harold Franklin “Hawkshaw” Hawkins died in a crash near Camden, Tennessee. She was buried in Shenandoah Memorial Park just outside the city.  Cline was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973. (Edited from Encyclopedia Virginia, Britannica & Wikipedia)

Joe Simon born September 1936

Joseph Simon (September 7, 1936* – December 13, 2021) was an American soul and R&B musician. 

Simon was born in Simmesport, Louisiana, United States. Similar to many other African American artists from the era, Simon began singing in his father's Baptist church. He pursued his vocal abilities full-time once the family moved to Richmond (near Oakland, California) in the late 1950s. There Simon joined the Golden West Gospel Singers and became influenced by Sam Cooke and Arthur Prysock. With this, the group decided to turn secular and recorded "Little Island Girl" as the Golden Tones in 1959. 

Hush Records label owners Gary and Carla Thompson urged Simon to record on his own, and in 1964 Simon scored a minor hit on the Vee-Jay label with "My Adorable One". Simon scored again in 1965 on the Chicago-based label with "Let's Do It Over", which landed a number 13 spot on the US Billboard R&B chart. However, the Vee-Jay label folded soon after the latter song's release and Simon found himself travelling across the country singing. 

Simon caught the eye of Nashville, Tennessee, R&B disc jockey John Richbourg during this time, and Richbourg not only became Simon's manager/record producer but also brought the singer to Monument Records' subsidiary label Sound Stage 7 in 1966. That year Simon released "Teenager's Prayer", which peaked at number 11 on Billboard's R&B chart. Within the next two years, Simon released a string of hits: "(You Keep Me) Hanging On", "The Chokin' Kind" (Billboard Hot 100 number 13), "Farther on Down The Road", and "Yours Love". "The Chokin' Kind" was written by Harlan Howard, spent 12 weeks in the charts, and had sold one million copies by June 16, 1969. In 1969, his composition "My Special Prayer", which had been a minor US hit for himself and for Percy Sledge, went to number one on the Dutch Top 40 in Sledge's version, spending 32 weeks on chart in two separate chart runs. 

                                     

Simon was given a Grammy Award in 1970 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Under the encouragement of Richbourg, Simon moved to the Polydor distributed Spring Records label  which paired Simon with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The team scored a number 3 R&B hit in 1971 with "Drowning in the Sea of Love" and a number 1 R&B hit in the summer of 1972 with "Power of Love". Both songs reached number 11 on the Hot 100. "Drowning in the Sea of Love" sold over 1.5 million copies and the RIAA on January 6, 1972, gave a gold disc. "Power of Love", written by Gamble, Huff and Simon was Simon's third million seller, and the R.I.A.A. awarded gold disc status on August 29, 1972. 

Simon continued to release R&B hits with "Pool of Bad Luck", "Trouble in My Home", "Step By Step" (his only UK success), "I Need You, You Need Me", "Music in My Bones", "Carry Me", and 1975's "Get Down, Get Down (Get on the Floor)", which gave Simon his third number 1 R&B hit, and also a number 8 Hot 100 hit. Simon's success escalated with his writing/producing the theme tune for the film Cleopatra Jones in 1973. 

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Simon decided to remove his tenor/bass-baritone voice from the secular music world and devote it and other parts of his life to Christianity. Simon began evangelical preaching in Flossmoor, Illinois. In 1983, he produced the album Lay My Burden Down for former Davis Sisters second lead Jackie Verdell. Simon briefly returned to secular music in 1985 for his Mr. Right album, though none of its singles charted. He went on to release a gospel album titled This Story Must Be Told in the late 1990s.

In 1999, Simon was inducted as a Pioneer Award honoree by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 2017 he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, making him the first artist to be inducted into a religious and secular music hall of fame.

He died on December 13, 2021. Simon's wife Melanie informed the Journal of Gospel Music of his death: "Joe had been ill for some time and spent his final night at home with her, even talking about going back into the studio. He died of breathing problems in an ambulance on his way to hospital. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Donnellan obit) (*Some sources gave his age as 85, in contrast to sources during his lifetime that had indicated a later year of birth of 1943).

Buzz Busby born 6 September 1933

Bernarr Graham Busbice (September 6, 1933 – January 5, 2003), known professionally as Buzz Busby, was an American bluegrass musician, known for his mandolin style and high tenor voice. He was nicknamed the "Father of Washington, D.C. Bluegrass". 

Busby was born near Eros, Louisiana, the eighth born of the nine children of Oates Oliver (1893-1943) and Talitha Fay (1894-1956) Busbice. In addition to running the family cotton farm, Oates was involved in local politics and Talithe (Fay) was a school teacher. Busbice and his siblings, some of whom were also musicians (notably Wayne Busbice), spent their Saturday nights listening to WSM's Grand Ole Opry and playing for dances with other area musicians. It was likely Busby's first experience with the mandolin came when his neighbor, Allen Crowell, would bring his mandolin over to play during his early childhood. 

Buzz picked up the guitar first, learning chords and simple runs from his brothers, Wayne and Lemoyne, who were playing guitar-fiddle duets and singing Monroe Brothers harmonies around their community. Buzz would eventually settle on the mandolin, and his complex style was born. In the late 1940s, Busby started a band with high school friend and guitarist Rot Fuller. Busby honed his mandolin and vocal skills by performing the music of Bill Monroe around the West Monroe, Louisiana area. 

Busby graduated from Eros High School in 1951. Because he was valedictorian of his class, Busby was recruited by the FBI, which was seeking gifted young people at that time. In June 1951 Busby moved to the Washington DC area to begin his career with the FBI. Shortly after his arrival in Washington while still working his day job at the FBI, Busby met Scotty Stoneman. It was through Stoneman that Busby met Jack Clement, who was then in the military and stationed in the Washington area, and they formed the Tennessee Troupers, named for Clement's home state. Roy Clark joined the group for a while on banjo. The group had no trouble finding jobs in 1951 and 1952, Buzz recalled playing four to five nights a week during this time. 

Busby, Clement and Scotty Stoneman played locally at first, then did stints at WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia and WCOP in Boston. Clement returned home to Tennessee after their shows in Boston ended. Busby was part of a novelty duo called Buzz and Jack with the talented songwriter and performer Jack Clement in 1953 and in the following years was featured with regularity on the television show Hayloft Hoedown on WRC-TV out of Washington, D.C. He was a regular from 1955 through 1956 with his group the Bayou Boys on the aforementioned Louisiana Hayride, a popular show which broadcast on Shreveport's KWKH. 

                                    

Busby leased out one of his early recordings for the indie Jiffy label to bluegrass enthusiast Bill Carrol during this period. This turned out to be a bit of bluegrass history as it was the acorn from which a grand tree known as the Rebel label grew. In the '60s, this label would make bluegrass history and help establish an entire new generation of artists. Busby seems to have his foot in bluegrass legend even when not intending to, in fact even when things happen that nobody would ever plan such as a car accident. In 1957, he and banjo hotshot Eddie Adcock got into a pile-up in the D.C. area and were hospitalized. A pickup band was thrown together to play a gig the pair had booked the next day, and that band worked out so well it turned into the Country Gentlemen, one of the biggest bluegrass groups ever.

Busby continued selling his original songs and wound up producing a series of hits through the '50s and '60s. If country music thrives on melodrama and tragedy, Busby seems to be hitting the main vein with titles such as "Lost" and "This World's No Place to Live, But It's Home," while some of his other subjects suggest he might be writing music for a weatherman friend: "Cold and Windy Night," "Lonesome Wind," "Blue Vietnam Skies." 

There was also the playful side to Busby, which made him a natural for the kind of rockabilly material that many country and bluegrass artists of his generation toyed with. "Zzztt" was an off-the-wall regional single with Busby and partner Wink Lewis, and he also liked to produce entertaining instrumentals such as "Mandolin Twist" and "Talking Banjo." The hit songs, combined with a strong mandolin style, kept Busby working steadily on the country and bluegrass scenes, on his own and in the groups of artists such as Jim Eanes and Bill Emerson. Of special interest was a duo with wonderful banjo wizard Don Stover.

Following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and major heart surgery in the early '90s, he was moved to a nursing facility in Catonsville, Maryland, where he died of heart failure on January 5, 2003.  (Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

 

Beverly Ross born 5 September 1934

Beverly Ross (September 5, 1934 – January 15, 2022) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who co-wrote several successful pop songs in the 1950s and 1960s, including "Dim, Dim the Lights", "Lollipop" (which she also recorded as one half of Ronald & Ruby), "The Girl of My Best Friend", "Remember Then", and "Judy's Turn to Cry". 

Ross was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Aron Ross, a cobbler, and Rachel (née Frank). She and her older sister, Phyllis, were raised in the Bronx, until the family moved to Lakewood, New Jersey, where they became chicken farmers. She learned the piano and began writing poetry and song lyrics. While she was still at high school, one of her songs was performed by Peggy Lee on national television. 

Ross heard that if she began canvassing writers at the Brill Building with some of her songs, then she could make some contacts. So, in 1952 she moved back to New York, and did just that. She met black songwriter Julius Dixson (or Dixon), and together they wrote "Dim, Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)". This was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954 and became a crossover hit in both the pop chart and R&B chart the following year. The song was the first rock and roll song recorded by a white singer to reach the R&B chart, and was hailed by Alan Freed as "the grand daddy song of rock n’ roll". It reached number 11 in the charts. 

               

                                   

In 1958 Ross and Dixson wrote one of her most lasting songs, "Lollipop". When Dixson explained that he was late for a songwriting session because his daughter had gotten a lollipop stuck in her hair, Ross began writing the song, and later recorded a demo version with Dixson's neighbor, teenager Ronald Gumm (or Gumps). Dixson, who owned the master and had produced the demo, then agreed to let RCA Records release it as by "Ronald and Ruby". The pair's version rose up the chart reaching no.20, but when it was learned that Ronald and Ruby were an inter-racial duo, television appearances that had been previously booked got cancelled. Cover versions by the Chordettes (no.2 in the US) and the Mudlarks (no.2 in the UK) rose higher up the charts, and the song became an international hit. Years later Ross had said, "I was writing serious songs and I just decided to write the silliest thing I could think of ". 

Brill building

While working at the Brill Building with Jeff Barry in the late 1950s, Ross was recruited by Jean Aberbach to work for the publishing company Hill & Range. She co-wrote the song "Dixieland Rock" with Aaron Schroeder, using the pseudonym Rachel Frank. The song was recorded by Elvis Presley for his 1958 movie King Creole and released on the soundtrack album. Ross also wrote "The Girl of My Best Friend" with Sam Bobrick. The song was first released as the B-side of a single by Charlie Blackwell, before being covered in 1960 by Presley, whose version which was first issued on his album Elvis Is Back reached no.9 in the UK, and Ral Donner, who reached no.19 in the US. Around the same time, Ross also made recordings under her own name for Columbia Records, including "Stop Laughing At Me" (1958) and "Say Hello" (1959). 

Phil Spector

At Hill & Range Ross met aspiring songwriter Phil Spector, and began collaborating with him on songs and demo recordings. They worked together for about six months. By 1960 she was—with Carole King—one of the top female pop music songwriters, and was seen as "kind of a queen bee". While working at the Brill Building, Ross claims that she was the creator of the tune which would become “Spanish Harlem” with Spector taking composing credit along with Jerry Leiber. Reacting in part to this incident, Ross would retire not longer after Ben E. King took the song to number 10 in early 1961, his first big solo hit.  Even though she had ‘retired’ from song writing, many of her earlier compositions would surface in the early 1960’s as hits.  Ross related in an interview that she felt if she had not retired she would have plunged into a severe nervous breakdown.

Her later hits as a songwriter included "Candy Man", co-written with Fred Neil whom she had met at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. The song was recorded by Roy Orbison as the B-side of "Crying" in 1961, and was re-recorded by Mickey Gilley and Charly McClain in 1984 when it reached No. 5 on the US country music chart. She also co-wrote "Remember Then" with Tony Powers; the song was first recorded by the Earls in 1962. The following year, "Judy's Turn to Cry", which she co-wrote with Edna Lewis, was recorded by Lesley Gore and became another hit. 

After some years away from the music business, Ross received a BMI award in 1985 for writing "Candy Man", and in 1989 set up home in Nashville. She wrote songs with Archie Jordan, Mark Dreyer, and others, which have been recorded by such artists as Engelbert Humperdinck, Bonnie Raitt, and Shelby Lynne. From the 1990s, Ross also worked on writing musical theatre shows, including City of Light, a show about Paris during the Nazi occupation in World War II which she co-wrote with Thom Spahn. The show was given a staged read-through directed by Holly-Anne Ruggiero in New York in 2008. 

In April 2013, Ross' memoir I Was the First Woman Phil Spector Killed, described as a "tell all book" in a "Gonzo journalistic style" about life in the Brill Building between 1958 and 1961, was published and was featured at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Ross died from dementia at a hospital in Nashville, on January 15, 2022, at the age of 87.

(Edited from Wikipedia & article by Kim Sloans)

Mitzi Gaynor born 4 September 1931

Mitzi Gaynor (September 4, 1931 – October 17, 2024) was an American actress, singer, dancer and one of the last surviving actors of the "Golden Age" of the Hollywood musical. 

She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber of Hungarian aristocratic ancestry. (Mitzi is diminutive for Marlene).Her father was violinist, cellist and music director Henry de Czanyi von Gerber, her mother Pauline was a dancer. Mitzi began performing in public from the age of four. Her family moved from Detroit to Hollywood when she was eleven. There, she was trained as a ballerina in the corps de ballet. Just three years later, she was on stage as a singer and dancer with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company in a production of Roberta. 

While playing the lead in Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta, Gaynor was discovered by a 20th Century Fox talent scout, auditioned and signed to a seven year contract. She made her screen debut as a dancer in My Blue Heaven (1950), singing 'Live Hard, Work Hard, Love Hard'. The studio kept her initials but changed her name from Gerber to Gaynor, likely in deference to Janet Gaynor, one of their major box-office stars of the 20s and 30s. 

Aged 19, vivacious, blonde, slightly snub-nosed and undeniably cute, Mitzi began her career as a lead performer in musicals, acting alongside some of the genre's most prominent names. Now a headliner in her own right, she portrayed 19th century entertainer Lotta Crabtree in the biopic Golden Girl (1951), a South Sea Islander in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1952) and the 'Queen of Vaudeville', Eva Tanguay, in The I Don't Care Girl (1953). All were minor box-office hits. Arguably her best role was that of Emily Ann Stackerlee in Damon Runyon's Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), with Gaynor at her exuberant best, dancing and singing "Bye Low". Her final picture -- before Fox dropped her contract-- was the star-studded extravaganza There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). In this, she played second fiddle to Ethel Merman, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor and Dan Dailey. 

That same year (1954) and not long away from the limelight, Gaynor married the very savvy talent agent and public relations executive Jack Bean. Bean soon quit his job with MCA to set up his own agency, Bean & Rose, which was largely about shepherding and rejuvenating Gaynor's career. She signed a new contract with Paramount in 1955 which resulted in a trio of films, the best of which was The Joker Is Wild (1957), starring Frank Sinatra as vaudevillian and night club entertainer Joe E. Lewis and Gaynor as his chorus girl wife. Next up, she played another showgirl in Les Girls (1957). This stodgy and confusingly scripted enterprise was chiefly notable for being Gene Kelly 's final appearance in a major musical and for the show-stopping number "Why Am I So Gone About That Gal?" performed by Kelly and Gaynor (both dressed as bikers, effectively lampooning Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953). 

                                   

Gaynor also recorded two albums for the Verve label, one called Mitzi and the second called Mitzi Gaynor Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin. It is estimated that she earned more from the record royalties on the South Pacific soundtrack album than her salary for the movie. She also recorded the title song from her film, Happy Anniversary for the Top Rank label. After South Pacific (a part which her husband managed to secure for her) Gaynor made only a handful of films. 

Her last effort was For Love or Money (1963), a matrimonial comedy starring Kirk Douglas. In 1963, Gaynor retired from films, explaining that she felt 'kind of ordinary' as an actress. She considered her talents to be better suited to the stage, to live performances. Her best performance was arguably her show-stopping appearance at The 39th Annual Academy Awards (1967) where her singing and dancing to the title song of Georgy Girl (1966) stopped the show. The Academy had a hard time getting the audience to sit down and stop applauding. 

She became the highest paid female entertainer in Las Vegas and was the first woman to be awarded the Las Vegas governor’s trophy for “Star Entertainer of the Year" in 1970. Consequently, the latter part of her career was spent on the nightclub circuit (especially in Las Vegas) and in television specials. . "Mitzi's back in town" became an annual slogan when Gaynor would come to the city for a number of weeks each year to break in her Las Vegas routines. In the 90s, Gaynor's career found a new lease of life as a featured columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, chronicling the golden years. From 2008 to 2011, Gaynor toured on and off with her show “Mitzi … Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins,” in which she reminisced about her glamorous life. 

Gaynor's many accolades have included a Golden Laurel (1958). She received a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard in 1960, and, in 2017, she was inducted into the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame.

Gaynor died from natural causes in Los Angeles on October 17, 2024, at age 93. 

(Edited from IMDb bio by I.S.Mowis, NPR & Wikipedia)