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The great Ann Miller was born 100 years ago today – here is my tribute to the movie and Broadway legend
I don’t think the late, great Ann Miller really got her due during her lifetime for being the amazingly talented person she was. She could sing, act, and God she could tap dance.
I am mesmerized by her tap dancing!
She is best remembered for her work in the Classical Hollywood cinema musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Her early work included roles in Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You (1938) and the Marx Bros. film Room Service (1938). She later starred in the movie musical classics Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953). Her final film role was in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001).
She was just 13 when she was discovered by Lucille Ball and was signed to a contract (she had a fake birth certificate showing her age as 18). The next year, In 1937, she played Ginger Rogers’ dancing partner in Stage Door which if you have never seen, you must! It stars Katharine Hepburn, Rogers, Ball, and Eve Arden, among others. Miller left RKO to go to Broadway where in 1939 she was a smash in George White’s Scandals. She returned to RKO with a $3,000 a week contract. Prior to the Broadway success, she had earned $150 a week.
Via Wikipedia: In 1969, she starred on Broadway in the musical Mame, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her.
1971 found her starring in an iconic television commercial for “The Great American Soup” (created by Stan Freberg), with Miller rising up out of the floor on top of an eight-foot high cylinder designed to look like a giant soup can. The ad was a spectacular song and dance number in the tradition of the movie extravaganzas which were her stock in trade.
In 1979, she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United States extensively after its Broadway run. Miller and Rooney were both nominated for Tony Awards and overall starred in the show for nine years.
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Comments
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Pierce says:
I had the great pleasure of seeing her with Mickey Rooney in Sugar Babies! It was one of the most joyful evenings I’ve ever spent in the theater. My only wish is that it was 3 hours instead of only two!