“South Pacific” star was 93

With her hazel eyes, thick curls and exuberant singing and dancing, the vivacious Gaynor stood out in films like… My blue sky (1950) with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey; with Irving Berlin There's no business like show business (1954), alongside Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe, her eventual successor at 20th Century Fox; and in the Cole Porter MGM musical Les Girls (1957) with Gene Kelly.

Gaynor also starred Everything is possible (1956) with Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor, The Joker is wild (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Happy anniversary (1959) with David Niven and Patty Duke.

In 1957, Gaynor entered tough competition for the role of Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in Joshua Logan South Pacificthe long-awaited adaptation of Rodgers & Hammerstein's sensational Broadway musical.

“I was filming The Joker is wild with Frank Sinatra and got the call that I was auditioning for Oscar Hammerstein in the ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel South Pacific“, she told Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune in 2013. “I did 'Honey Bun,' I did 'A Cockeyed Optimist.'” I did everything but take my clothes off.

“Oscar's way, all the way across the ballroom. Why? I don't know. But he went over afterwards. …Do you know when you are doing good? You feel like, 'At least I didn't make a fool of myself.' Oscar took my hand and said, 'Thank you very much, Miss Gaynor.' You were a wonderful sport.”

She famously sang “I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and “Some Enchanted Evening” in the 1958 film, and the exotic musical set during World War II became the third highest-grossing film (17.5 million US dollars). or $147 million today) of the year. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Comedy or Musical).

Gaynor's last notable film appearance was in Stanley Donens surprise package (1960), a musical comedy that also starred Yul Brenner. When the Hollywood musical fell into obscurity, she retired from the cinema after just one more film, the one starring Kirk Douglas For love or money (1963). She was in her early 30s.

“I stopped doing films because they abandoned me,” she said in a 2012 interview for the TV Academy Foundation. “Marilyn Monroe was now the new Alice Faye/Betty Grable, she did the musicals on Fox. I wouldn't do that My beautiful ladyand I wasn't planning on singing 'The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Screaming' – there was nothing for me to do.”

Together with her husband/manager Jack Bean, she cleverly set her sights on Las Vegas. Dressed in glittering Mackie costumes and accompanied by a team of handsome male dancers, she began singing, dancing and telling jokes in Vegas in 1961 and eventually acquired a stake in the Flamingo Hotel.

After a 13-minute performance on The Sullivan Show that the Catholic Church described as “lascivious,” she was introduced as “Hollywood's Mitzi Gaynor!!!” – The Beatles asked her for an autograph. (During rehearsals, they also asked to borrow their hairdryers.) They all appeared on the show, which aired from a Miami hotel and was seen by 70 million viewers; a week earlier, Sullivan had introduced the Fab Four to America for the first time.

Gaynor was reportedly earning $45,000 a week in Vegas in 1968. Also that year she starred in her first TV special: Mitzifor NBC.

Five years later, she directed the first of her six annual specials for CBS, including Mitzi and a hundred boys; Mitzi… A tribute to the American housewife; Mitzi… Spring is beginning; And Mitzi… What's popular and what's not.

Gaynor said she was regularly asked to appear on a weekly variety show but declined. “Gene Kelly once told me, 'Only do event television,'” she said.

After all her years on television, she finally won an Emmy in 2008 for her PBS special Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The special years.

She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber on September 4, 1931 in Chicago. Her mother was a dancer and her father a cellist, and she took her first dance class when she was eight. An only child, she and her parents moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit, and finally to LA at age 11 to follow her dance teacher.

At age 13, then known as Mitzi Gerber, she convinced Edwin Lester, the impresario of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, that she was 16 and got a role in the musical Song without words.

She then danced during a comedy role in a West Coast production of Jerome Kerns' Robertawith Tom Ewell. This led to appearances in touring productions The fortune teller (gypsy on Broadway), Song of Norway (as Miss Anders, her first speaking role), Naughty Marietta alongside Susanna Foster and as Katie in 1949 The Great Waltz.

While inside The Great WaltzShe was discovered by a Fox producer, signed a contract with studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck and had her last name changed to Gaynor. In My blue sky, She stood out in several of the film's television commercials.

Fox groomed her to become the next Grable, and soon after she starred in the Jeanne Crain student story Take care of my little girl (1951); Golden Girl (1951), set in the midst of the California Gold Rush; the comedy We're not married! (1952) with Monroe; Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952); Down between the protective palm trees (1953); The girl I don't care about (1953); Three young Texans (1954); And The birds and the bees (1956), an RKO remake of The lady Eve.

On a Danny Thomas television show in 1966, Gaynor met costume designer Ray Aghayan, who showed her a series of sketches for outfits he had designed, and she was impressed. She wanted him for her next show, but he was busy with Judy Garland, so Aghayan suggested his partner Mackie instead. That was the beginning of a long, fruitful collaboration.

Gaynor was often invited to Academy Awards and caused a stir in 1954 with performances of “The Moon Is Blue” (with host O'Connor) and “There's No Business Like Show Business” (with over and under singing) as the series ended went) in 1959 and “Georgy Girl” in 1967.

Gaynor said she dated Howard Hughes for about eight months and broke up with him when she was 19. She said he begged her to marry him, but “found out he had also asked 400 other girls to marry him,” she said. (He advised her to buy “some dirt” in Las Vegas; she bought it for $25 an acre and sold it for “two million dollars,” she further told Mo Rocca in October 2019 CBS Sunday Morning.)

In September 2022, she received a Legacy Award from the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

She was married to Bean, who started as a public relations executive at MCA, from 1954 until his death in 2006.