Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, S.L., no. 8.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 636.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 114. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 780. Photo: Paramount Pictures, 1956.
Starting her career as a chorus dancer at 12
Mitzi Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in 1931, in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Pauline, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. After her father remarried, she became step-sister to anti-war activist Donald W. Duncan. Her family first moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit, and later when she was eleven, to Hollywood.
She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 12, she joined the dancing chorus of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School.
In 1950, she signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox where she sang, acted, and danced in several film musicals. A Fox Studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a delicatessen, and they came up with a name that used the same initials. Gaynor made her film debut in a musical, My Blue Heaven (Henry Koster, 1950) supporting Betty Grable and Dan Dailey.
She followed it with a college drama Take Care of My Little Girl (Jean Negulesco, 1951), where she played the roommate of Jeanne Crain. Fox then gave Gaynor a star part, in the musical biopic Golden Girl (Lloyd Bacon, 1951). It was a mild success at the box office. Gaynor was one of several stars in the anthology comedy We're Not Married! (Edmund Goulding, 1952) with Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, and she was top-billed in the musical, Bloodhounds of Broadway (Harmon Jones, 1952).
Fox put her in another biopic, The I Don't Care Girl (Lloyd Bacon, 1952), where she played Ziegfeld star Eva Tanguay. Gaynor starred in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (Edmund Goulding, 1953), playing a South Sea island girl. She was the female lead in a Western, Three Young Texans (Henry Levin, 1954) with Jeffrey Hunter. Gaynor's most popular film in her time at Fox was There's No Business Like Show Business (Walter Lang, 1954), where she was billed after Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor and Johnnie Ray.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 672, offered by Les Carbones Korès Carboplane. Photo: Paramount.
Belgian postcard by Bromophoto, Bruxelles (Brussels). Photo: Paramount.
Spanish postcard by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 23. Photo: M.G.M., 1959.
Yugoslavian postcard by 3K, no. 2915.
A major draw on the nightclub and summer musical circuit
In 1954, Mitzi Gaynor married Jack Bean, a talent agent and public relations executive for MCA, in San Francisco, California. She had just been released from Twentieth Century-Fox (before the start of There's No Business Like Show Business) with four years left on her contract and decided with the time off to get married. The union was childless.
After their wedding, Bean quit MCA, started his own real estate business and managed Gaynor's career. Bean wisely perceived that his new bride was a far more effective performer on a live stage than a film set. In 1956, Gaynor appeared in the Paramount remake of Anything Goes (Robert Lewis, 1956), co-starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, and Zizi Jeanmaire, loosely based on the musical by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton.
Paramount cast her in another remake, The Birds and the Bees (Norman Taurog, 1956) with David Niven, playing the role originated by Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941). Her third film for Paramount was The Joker Is Wild (Charles Vidor, 1957), a biopic of famous comedian Joe E. Lewis (Frank Sinatra) in which Gaynor played the female lead. In 1957, Gaynor appeared in MGM's Les Girls (George Cukor, 1957), with Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall.
Her biggest international fame came from the plum role of Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (Joshua Logan, 1958), starring Rossano Brazzi. She was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe Award for her performance. Gaynor followed this with a comedy at MGM, Happy Anniversary (David Miller, 1959) opposite David Niven, and the British musical comedy thriller Surprise Package (Stanley Donen, 1960), with Yul Brynner and Noël Coward. Her last film role was For Love or Money (Michael Gordon, 1963), starring Kirk Douglas.
Mitzi Gaynor's film career was over, but happily, she continued to be a major draw on the nightclub and summer musical circuit. She often performed songs at Academy Awards ceremonies. At the 1967 Oscar telecast, she sang the theme from the film Georgy Girl (Silvio Narizzano, 1966) and stopped the show. The Academy had difficulty getting the audience to sit down and stop applauding. Gaynor later added the number to her concert repertoire. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she starred in nine acclaimed television specials that garnered 16 Emmy nominations. During the 1990s, Gaynor also became a featured columnist for the influential magazine The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband Jack Bean died in 2006. Mitzi passed away peacefully on 17 October 2024 of natural causes.
Yugoslavian postcard by 3K, no. 2944.
Vintage photo by 20th Century Fox. Mitzi Gaynor in My Blue Heaven (Henry Koster, 1950).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 164. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Mitzi Gaynor (right), Dennis Day and Una Merkel in Golden Girl (Lloyd Bacon, 1951).
Vintage set photo.
Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.
Enjoyed her very much in South Pacific.
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