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)