Mitzi Gaynor

Mitzi Gaynor (born September 4, 1931) is an American actress, singer, and dancer.

Life and career

Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director.

Her family first moved to Detroit and later when she was eleven on to Hollywood. She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 13, she was singing and dancing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera company. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School, and signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox at age 17. She sang, acted, and danced in a number of film musicals, often paired with some of the biggest male musical stars of the day. 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.

Notable films included There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), which featured Irving Berlin's music and also starred Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray; and South Pacific, the 1958 motion picture adaptation of the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein.