Carol Channing
Carol Channing, circa 1973
Born	Carol Elaine Channing (1921-01-31) January 31, 1921 (age 91) Seattle, Washington, USA
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Bennington College
Occupation	Actress/Singer/Comedienne
Years active	1941–present
Home town	San Francisco, California
Spouse	Theodore Naidish (m.1941-1944; divorced) Alexander Carson (m.1953-1956; divorced; 1 son) Charles Lowe (m.1956-1999; his death) Harry Kullijian (m.2003-2011; his death)
Children	Channing Carson
Awards	3 Tony Awards, Golden Globes

Carol Elaine Channing (born January 31, 1921)^[1] is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards (including one for lifetime achievement), a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Channing is best remembered for originating, on Broadway, the musical-comedy roles of bombshell Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and matchmaking widow Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly!

Childhood and education[link]

Channing was born in Seattle, Washington, the only child of George and Adelaide (née Glaser; 1886–1984) Channing.^[2] Her father was a city editor at the Seattle Star; his newspaper career took the family to San Francisco when Carol was only two weeks old. Her father later became a successful Christian Science practitioner, editor, and teacher. She attended Aptos Middle School and Lowell High School in San Francisco. At Lowell, Channing was a member of its famed Lowell Forensic Society, the nation's oldest high-school debate team.

According to Channing's memoirs, when she left home to attend Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist who Carol had believed was born in Rhode Island, had in fact been born in Augusta, Georgia, to a German-American father and an African-American mother. According to Channing's account, her mother reportedly did not want [Channing] to be surprised "if she had a black baby".^[3][4] Channing kept this a secret to avoid any problems on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess (published in 2002). Her autobiography contains a photograph of her mother but has no photos of her father or son.^[5] The book states her father's birth certificate was destroyed in a fire.^[6]

Career[link]

Channing was introduced to the stage while working for her mother. In a 2005 interview with the Austin Chronicle, Channing recounted this experience:

"My mother said, 'Carol, would you like to help me distribute Christian Science Monitors backstage at the live theatres in San Francisco?' And I said, 'All right, I'll help you.' I don't know how old I was. I must have been little. We went through the stage door alley (for the Curran Theatre), and I couldn't get the stage door open. My mother came and opened it very well. Anyway, my mother went to put the Monitors where they were supposed to go for the actors and the crew and the musicians, and she left me alone. And I stood there and realized – I'll never forget it because it came over me so strongly – that this is a temple. This is a cathedral. It's a mosque. It's a mother church. This is for people who have gotten a glimpse of creation and all they do is recreate it. I stood there and wanted to kiss the floorboards."^[7]

Carol Channing photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1956

Channing's first job on stage in New York was in Marc Blitzstein's No For an Answer, which was given two special Sunday performances starting January 5, 1941 at the Mecca Temple (later New York's City Center). She was 19 years old. Channing then moved to Broadway for Let's Face It!, in which she was an understudy for Eve Arden. Decades later, Arden would play "Dolly" in a road company after Channing finally relinquished the role. Five years later, Channing had a featured role in a revue, Lend an Ear. She was spotted by author Anita Loos and cast in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as Lorelei Lee, the role that brought her to prominence. (Her signature song from the production was Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.) In 1961, Channing became one of a very few Tony Award nominees to gain a nomination for work in a revue (rather than a traditional book musical), when she was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical, for the short-lived revue Show Girl.^{[citation needed]}

Channing came to national prominence as the star of Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! She never missed a performance except for Gracie Allen's funeral, when Bibi Osterwald (her standby) played one performance. Carol attributed her good health to her Christian Science faith. Her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, in a year when her chief competition was Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl.

Channing reprised the role of Lorelei Lee in the musical Lorelei. She also appeared in two New York revivals of Hello, Dolly!, and toured with it extensively throughout the United States. She also appeared in a number of movies, The First Traveling Sales Lady (1956) with Ginger Rogers, the cult film Skidoo and Thoroughly Modern Millie, opposite Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore. For Millie she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.^{[citation needed]}

Channing performing with Pearl Bailey, 1973

In 1966, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. During her film career she also made some guest appearances on television sitcoms and talk shows, including CBS's What's My Line? on which she appeared in eleven episodes from 1962 to 1966. Channing also did a fair amount of voice over work in cartoons, most notably as Grandmama in an animated version of The Addams Family which ran from 1992 to 1995.

Channing was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.^[8] She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995,^[9] and an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts by California State University, Stanislaus in 2004.^[10] That same year, she received the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.^[11] She and husband Harry Kullijian (December 27, 1919 – December 26, 2011) were active in promoting arts education in California schools with the Dr. Carol Channing and Harry Kullijian Foundation. The couple resided in Modesto, California.

In 1984, Channing appeared on Sesame Street and sang a parody of the song "Hello, Dolly! called "Hello, Sammy!", a love song being sung by Channing to a character known as Sammy the Snake (as voiced by Jim Henson). Channing, in this parody segment, serenades Sammy telling him just how much she loves and adores him while Sammy coils himself around Channing's arms. This song includes lyrics such as "So..turn on your charm, Sammy/Coil yourself around my arm, Sammy/Sammy the Snake, I'll stake a claim on you." ^[12]

In 2011, a documentary film about Channing, directed by Dori Bernstein, Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, premiered.^[13]

Family and personal life[link]

Channing in October 2009

Channing, a Democrat, was a solid supporter of Lyndon B. Johnson and at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey she welcomed the future president by serenading him with a parody of Hello, Dolly which was sung as Hello, Lyndon^[14].

Channing has been married four times. Her first husband, Theodore Naidish, was a writer. Her second husband, Alexander Carson, played center for the Ottawa Rough Riders Canadian football team. They had one son, Channing Carson, who took his stepfather's surname and is now a Pulitzer-Prize-nominated cartoonist publishing under the name Chan Lowe.^[15] In 1956, Channing married her manager and publicist, Charles Lowe. They remained married for 42 years, but she filed for divorce abruptly in 1998. He died before the divorce was finalized. After Lowe's death and until shortly before her fourth marriage, the actress's companion was Roger Denny, an interior decorator.^[16]

On May 10, 2003, she married Harry Kullijian, her fourth husband and junior high school sweetheart, who reunited with her after she mentioned him fondly in her memoir. The two performed at their old junior high school, which had become Aptos Middle School, in a benefit for the school. He died on December 26, 2011, the eve of his 92nd birthday. At Lowell High School, they renamed the school's auditorium "The Carol Channing Theatre" in her honor. The city of San Francisco, California, proclaimed February 25, 2002, to be Carol Channing Day, for her advocacy of gay rights and her appearance as the celebrity host of the Gay Pride Day festivities in Hollywood.

Channing is an ovarian cancer survivor.^[17][18]

Works[link]

Theater[link]

• No For an Answer (January 5 and January 11, 1941)
• Let's Face It! (October 29, 1941 – March 20, 1943) (understudy for Eve Arden)
• Proof Thro' the Night (December 25, 1942 – January 2, 1943)
• Lend an Ear (December 16, 1948 – January 21, 1950)
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (December 8, 1949 – September 15, 1951)
• Wonderful Town (February 25, 1953 – July 3, 1954) (replacement for Rosalind Russell)
• The Vamp (November 10 - December 31, 1955) (Best Actress in a Musical nominee)
• Show Girl (January 12 - April 8, 1961) (Best Actress in a Musical nominee)
• Hello, Dolly! (January 16, 1964 – December 27, 1970) (left show in 1967)
• Four on a Garden (January 30 - March 20, 1971)
• Lorelei (January 27 - November 3, 1974) (Best Actress in a Musical nominee)
• Julie's Friends at the Palace (May 19, 1974) (benefit performance)
• Hello, Dolly! (March 15 - July 19, 1978) (revival)
• Legends (January 7, 1986 – January 18, 1987) (national tour)
• Hello, Dolly! (October 19, 1995 – January 28, 1996) (revival; farewell tour)

Film[link]

The handprints of Carol Channing in front of The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort.

• Paid in Full (1950)
• The First Traveling Saleslady (1956)
• All About People (1967) (short subject) (narrator)
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
• Skidoo (1968)
• Shinbone Alley (1971) (voice)
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) (Cameo)
• Parade of Stars (1983)
• Alice in Wonderland (1985)
• Happily Ever After (1993) (voice)
• Thumbelina (1994) (voice)
• Homo Heights (1998)
• The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1998) (voice) (direct-to-video)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
• Carol Channing: Larger Than Life (2011) (documentary)

TV[link]

• The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford (NBC, December 4, 1958)
• The Love Boat (1981)
• Magnum, P.I. (1983)
• Alice in Wonderland (The White Queen) (1985)
• Sesame Street (1988)
• Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1989) (voice)
• Where's Waldo? (1991) (voice)
• The Addams Family (1992) (voice)
• 2 Stupid Dogs (1993) (voice)
• The Nanny (1993)
• The Magic School Bus (1994 - Episode "In the Haunted House") (voice)
• Burke's Law (1994)
• Space Ghost Coast to Coast: 'Girlie Show' (1995)
• Family Guy: 'Patriot Games' (2006)
• Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List: 'Kathy Is a Star...Kind Of' (2009) (guest appearance)

Audio[link]

Original Cast Albums:

• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Columbia Records, 1950.
• Show Girl, 1961
• Hello, Dolly, RCA Records, 1964
• Lorelei, Decca Records, 1974
• Hello Dolly, 1994

Additional albums:

• archy & mehitabel, a back-alley opera (with Eddie Bracken), 1954
• Carol Channing, Vanguard Records, 1961
• Carol Channing Reads Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Caedmon Records, 1962
• Carol Channing Entertains, Command Records, 1965
• Carol Channing Reads Madeleine, Caedmon Records, 1970s
• C and W (with Webb Pierce), Plantation Records, 1976
• Carol Channing and Her Country Friends (guest appearances by Jimmy C. Newman, Hank Locklin, and others), Plantation Records, 1977
• Carol Channing on Tour, 51 West Records, 1980
• Jazz Baby, DRG Records. 1994
• For Heaven's Sake, New Day Records, 2010
• archy & mehitabel, a back-alley opera (with Eddie Bracken), 2011

Awards and Nominations[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sorts by Carol Channing (Simon & Schuster, 2002)
• Diary of a Mad Playwright: Perilous Adventures on the Road with Mary Martin and Carol Channing by James Kirkwood, Jr., about production of the play "Legends" (Dutton, 1989)

External links[link]

• Carol Channing at the Internet Broadway Database
• Carol Channing | PlaybillVault.com
• Carol Channing at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Carol Channing at the Internet Movie Database
• Carol Channing - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
• TonyAwards.com Interview with Carol Channing
• Photo of Carol Channing in 1965 with her son, Chan

Ryan Stiles
Stiles in November 2008
Birth name	Ryan Lee Stiles
Born	(1959-04-22) April 22, 1959 (age 53) Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Medium	Stand up, Television, Film
Nationality	American
Years active	1985–present
Genres	Improvisational comedy
Spouse	Patricia McDonald (1989–present)
Notable works and roles	Herb Melnick on Two and a Half Men Lewis Kiniski on The Drew Carey Show British and American versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Ryan Lee Stiles (born April 22, 1959) is an American actor, comedian, director, and voice actor whose work is often associated with improvisational comedy. He is best known for his improv and co-production work on the American and British versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the role of Lewis Kiniski on The Drew Carey Show. He plays Herb Melnick on the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men and was a performer on the show Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza.

Early life and career[link]

Stiles was born in Seattle, Washington, the youngest of five children. His father Sonny was a fishing plant supervisor.^[1] Stiles lived in Vancouver, British Columbia as a teenager.^[2] At the age of seventeen, he dropped out of his high school, Richmond Secondary, to pursue a career in comedy. He briefly worked in his father's fish-processing plant to earn a living. He then began performing improv with Vancouver Theatresports League. In 1986, Stiles successfully auditioned for a berth at Toronto's renowned Second City comedy ensemble.

Television work[link]

By 1989, Stiles had gained the attention of the producers of the British improvisational comedy show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Stiles was a regular on the show until 1998, and the show's short production season allowed him to make numerous television and motion picture appearances in the United States.

In 1995, Stiles was asked by American comic Drew Carey to be a regular on his comedy The Drew Carey Show. Stiles played Drew's smart but underachieving best friend, Lewis Kiniski. Stiles' first line in the pilot episode of the show, "And that's why the French don't wash," is a line he had previously used in an episode of the British version of Whose Line?.

[edit] Whose Line Is It Anyway?

In 1998, Carey successfully lobbied ABC to get an American version of Whose Line? produced. Following the final season of the British version in 1998, the American version premiered, with both Stiles and Carey credited as executive producers. Stiles and Colin Mochrie were the only two performers to appear in every episode of the US version, although Wayne Brady also became a regular near the beginning of the second season. The series was produced until 2006.

Stiles was the most prolific performer on the original UK version of Whose Line?, appearing in 76 of the series 136 episodes (including compilations). He first appeared in the fifth episode of the second season, which aired in late 1988. He appeared in one other episode of that season, before returning for four episodes of the third season. His prominence increased with each season, including appearances in every episode of Season 4 which was filmed in New York; ultimately appearing in every episode from the seventh season onwards.

Stiles was known for several recurring impressions he performed on the shows, performed both at his own decision and as an assignment in games. These included Carol Channing, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Steve Irwin and Christopher Lloyd's character in Taxi, Jim Ignatowski. He made his dislike of the musical segments of the show abundantly clear at every opportunity whenever he was chosen to perform in them, mostly because of his inability to form lyrics quickly. In particular, he disliked the games Hoedown and Irish Drinking Song, often reacting negatively (or with sarcastic irony) to the games being announced. Other than in early UK playings, Stiles was always the last performer to sing in Hoedown and other similar musical games, allowing him more time to devise lyrics, and giving him the final punch-lines, as well as injecting (usually not-so subtle) jabs at the Hoedown itself, or of the host for having him perform in it.

Stiles had first met Colin Mochrie years before while performing stand-up. They first performed together in Vancouver TheaterSports then in Second City, Toronto. There were a number of games which exclusively paired Mochrie and Stiles at every playing. Though other performers did so, he was the most common performer to make bald jokes at Mochrie's expense. In return, Mochrie often made jokes about Stiles's height, nose, attractiveness, and tendency to wear exotic, flamboyant shoes. However, Stiles would sometimes stand up to or make jokes at the other performers (including Drew Carey) who made fun of Mochrie's baldness or Mochrie in general, notably during Scenes From A Hat.

Stiles took part in the regular practice of mocking host Clive Anderson on the UK series, though he did so with less frequency than others. By contrast, on the American version, he was among the most frequent mockers of Carey, especially during the Hoedowns.

Stiles was almost always in a button-up shirt; typically a dress shirt, and was one of the few performers (along with Greg Proops, and Colin during tapings of the UK version) to commonly wear a necktie. One of Stiles's notable trademarks on the US series were his dress shoes, many of which were an unusual color, most notably his blue shoes, or had a flashy pattern of several colors. This was because he had to get many of his shoes custom made by George Esquivel, since his height & shoe size often made it problematic for Stiles to buy shoes from a store. Stiles' shoes and the size of his nose were sometimes mocked by Carey and the other performers. In addition, a running gag on both versions of the show had the producers trying (and invariably failing) to stump Stiles, by giving him increasingly bizarre mannerisms or characters in the games that require him to act them out. When reading them just prior to the scene, he and Carey would often laugh at what was written on the cards.^[3]

Stiles received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 2002 for his work on the show.

Though he never appeared in the series, Stiles (along with Kaitlyn Olson) performed in the taping of the unaired pilot episode of Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, which involved improv games similar to Whose Line? games played in front of a massive green screen. Animation was later added to the improv footage.

Personal life[link]

In 1981, Stiles met Patricia McDonald at Punchlines where she was waitressing. They lived together for seven years before marrying in 1988. They have three children: Sam, Mackenzie, and Claire.^{[citation needed]} When not working in Hollywood, he lives at his home on Lake Samish, outside Bellingham, Washington,^[4] where he has opened the Upfront Theatre, a small theatre dedicated to live improv comedy.^[5]

Stiles once lived in a house previously owned by Liberace in Sherman Oaks, California, but he sold it.^[6]

Other appearances[link]

Stiles appeared in the 1991 film Hot Shots as Mailman Farnham, and also starred in the 1993 sequel Hot Shots! Part Deux, as marine Rabinowitz.

Since 2004, Stiles has been seen as the recurring character Dr. Herb Melnick in several episodes of the comedy Two and a Half Men which stars his Hot Shots co-star Jon Cryer and formerly Charlie Sheen. Stiles also made short guest appearances on Murphy Brown, Mad About You, Mad TV, and Dharma & Greg. In July 2008, he was a guest star on Reno 911! as Sergeant Clift, an acting coach.

During the 1994 Major League Baseball strike, Stiles appeared in several commercials for Nike, hanging out in an empty ballpark, doing things such as playing the organ and attempting to do the wave alone. The commercials ended with the line: "Play ball. Please."

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ryan Stiles

• Ryan Stiles Net

• Ryan Stiles at the Internet Movie Database

• Ryan Stiles biography

v t e Whose Line Is It Anyway? UK version Host Clive Anderson Regular contestants Chip Esten Stephen Frost Stephen Fry Josie Lawrence Mike McShane Paul Merton Colin Mochrie Greg Proops John Sessions Brad Sherwood Tony Slattery Steve Steen Ryan Stiles Jim Sweeney Sandi Toksvig Caroline Quentin Musicians Colin Sell Richard Vranch Laura Hall Win Meyerson US version Host Drew Carey Regular contestants Wayne Brady Chip Esten Kathy Greenwood Colin Mochrie Greg Proops Brad Sherwood Denny Siegel Ryan Stiles Jeff Davis Musicians Laura Hall Linda Taylor Cece Worrall-Ruben Related topics List of UK episodes List of US episodes List of games Drew Carey's Green Screen Show (List of episodes) Mock the Week Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza (List of episodes)

Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer.^[1] Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage."^[2] Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "Some People", "Rose's Turn", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely", "Friendship", "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", and "There's No Business Like Show Business", which later became her theme song.

Early life[link]

Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in her maternal grandmother's house located at 265 4th Street in Astoria, Queens, in New York City in 1908, though she would later emphatically declare that it was actually 1912.^[3] Her father, Edward Zimmermann (1879–1977), was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes (née Gardner; 1883–1974), was a school teacher. Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian, but shortly after they were wed they joined the Episcopalian congregation at Church of the Redeemer, where Merman was baptized. Her parents were strict about church attendance, and every Sunday she spent the day there, first at morning services, followed by Sunday school, an afternoon prayer meeting, and an evening study group for children.^[4]

Merman attended P.S. 4 and William Cullen Bryant High School (which later named its auditorium in her honor), where she pursued a commercial course that offered secretarial training.^[5] She was active in numerous extracurricular activities, including the school magazine, the speakers' club, and student council, and she frequented the local music store to peruse the weekly arrivals of new sheet music.^[6] On Friday nights the Zimmermann family would take the subway into Manhattan to see the vaudeville show at the Palace Theatre, where Merman discovered Blossom Seeley, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, and Nora Bayes. At home she would try to emulate their singing styles, but her own distinct voice was difficult to disguise.^[7]

After graduating from Bryant in 1924, Merman was hired as a stenographer by the Boyce-Ite Company. One day during her lunch break, she met Vic Kliesrath, who offered her a job at the Bragg-Kliesrath Corporation for a $5 increase above the weekly $23 salary she was earning, and Merman accepted the offer. She was eventually made personal secretary to company president Caleb Smith Bragg, whose frequent lengthy absences from the office allowed her to catch up on the sleep she had lost the previous night when she was out late performing at private parties. During this period Merman also began appearing in nightclubs, first hired by Jimmy Durante's partner Lou Clayton. It was at this time she decided that the name Ethel Zimmermann was too long for a theater marquee. She considered combining Ethel with Gardner or Hunter, her grandmother's maiden name, but finally abbreviated Zimmermann to Merman to appease her father.^[8]

Early career[link]

During a two-week engagement at Little Russia, a club in midtown Manhattan, Merman met agent Lou Irwin, who arranged for her to audition for Archie Mayo, a contract director at Warner Bros. He offered her an exclusive six-month contract, starting at $125 per week, and Merman quit her day job, only to find herself idle for weeks while waiting to be cast in a film. She finally urged Irwin to try to cancel her agreement with Mayo; instead, he negotiated her a better deal allowing her to perform in clubs while remaining on the Warners payroll. Merman was hired as a torch singer at Les Ambassadeurs, where the headliner was Jimmy Durante, and the two became lifelong friends. She caught the attention of columnists such as Walter Winchell and Mark Hellinger, who began giving her publicity. Soon after Merman underwent a tonsillectomy she feared might damage her voice, but after recovering she discovered it was more powerful than ever.^[9]

While performing on the prestigious Keith Circuit, Merman was signed to replace Ruth Etting in the Paramount film Follow the Leader (1930), starring Ed Wynn and Ginger Rogers. Following a successful seven-week run at the Brooklyn Paramount, she was signed to perform at the Palace for $500 per week. During the run, theatre producer Vinton Freedley saw her perform and invited her to audition for the role of San Francisco café singer Kate Fothergill in the new George and Ira Gershwin musical Girl Crazy. Upon hearing her sing "I Got Rhythm", the Gershwins immediately cast her, and Merman began juggling daytime rehearsals with her matinee and evening performance schedule at the Palace.^[10]

Girl Crazy opened on October 14, 1930 at the Alvin Theatre, where it ran for 272 performances.^[11] The New York Times noted Merman sang "with dash, authority, good voice and just the right knowing style," while The New Yorker called her "imitative of no one."^[12] Merman was fairly blasé about her notices, prompting George Gershwin to ask her mother, "Have you ever seen a person so unconcerned as Ethel?", and he made her promise never to work with a singing teacher.^[13]

Ethel Merman with Tyrone Power in the trailer for Alexander's Ragtime Band

During the run of Girl Crazy, Paramount signed Merman to appear in a series of ten short musical films, most of which allowed her to sing a rousing number as well as a ballad. She also performed at the Central Park Casino, the Paramount Theatre, and a return engagement at the Palace. As soon as Girl Crazy closed, she and her parents departed for a much-needed vacation in Lake George in Upstate New York, but after their first day there Merman was summoned to Atlantic City to help salvage the troubled latest edition of George White's Scandals. Because she was still under contract to Freedley, White was forced to pay the producer $10,000 for her services, in addition to her weekly $1,500 salary. Following the Atlantic City run, the show played in Newark and then Brooklyn before opening on Broadway, where it ran for 202 performances.^[14]

Merman's next show, Humpty Dumpty, began rehearsals in August 1932 and opened—and immediately closed—in Pittsburgh the following month. Producer Buddy DeSylva, who also had written the book and lyrics, was certain it could be reworked into a success and, with a revamped script and additional songs by Vincent Youmans,^[15] it opened with the new title Take a Chance on November 26 at the Apollo, where it ran for 243 performances.^[16] Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called it "fast, loud, and funny" and added Merman "has never loosed herself with quite so much abandon." Following the Broadway run, she agreed to join the show on the road, but shortly after the Chicago opening she claimed the chlorine in the city's water supply was irritating her throat, and Merman returned to Manhattan.^[12]

Merman returned to Hollywood to appear in We're Not Dressing, a 1934 screwball comedy based on the J. M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton. Despite working with a cast that included Bing Crosby, Carole Lombard, and Burns and Allen, under the direction of Academy Award–winning director Norman Taurog, Merman was unhappy with the experience, and she was dismayed to discover one of her musical numbers had been cut when she attended the New York opening with her family and friends. That same year she also appeared on screen with Eddie Cantor in Kid Millions, but it was her return to Broadway that would establish her as a major star and cement her image as a tough girl with a soft heart.^[17]

Anything Goes proved to be the first of five Cole Porter musicals in which Merman starred. In addition to the title song, the score included "I Get a Kick Out of You", "You're the Top", and "Blow Gabriel Blow". It opened on November 21, 1934 at the Alvin Theatre,^[18] and the New York Post called Merman "vivacious and ingratiating in her comedy moments, and the embodiment of poise and technical adroitness" when singing "as only she knows how to do." Although Merman always had remained with a show until the end of its run, she left Anything Goes after eight months to appear with Eddie Cantor in the film Strike Me Pink. She was replaced by Benay Venuta, with whom she enjoyed a long but frequently tempestuous friendship.^[19]

Merman initially was overlooked for the 1936 screen adaptation of Anything Goes when Bing Crosby insisted his wife Dixie Lee be cast as Reno Sweeney opposite his Billy Crocker, but when she unexpectedly dropped out of the project Merman was given the opportunity to reprise the role she had originated on stage. From the beginning, it was clear to Merman the film would not be the enjoyable experience she had hoped it would be. The focus was shifted to Crosby, leaving her very much in a supporting role. Many of Porter's ribald lyrics were altered to conform to the guidelines of the Motion Picture Production Code, and "Blow Gabriel Blow" was eliminated completely, replaced by a song Merman was forced to perform in a headdress made of peacock feathers while surrounded by dancers dressed as Chinese slave girls. The film was completed $201,000 over budget and seventeen days behind schedule, and Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Herald Tribune described it as "dull and commonplace," with Merman doing "as well as possible" but unable to register "on the screen as magnificently as she does on the stage."^[20]

In the film trailer for There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Merman returned to Broadway for another Porter musical, but despite the presence of Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope in the cast, Red, Hot and Blue closed after less than six months.^[21] Back in Hollywood, Merman was featured in Happy Landing, a minor comedy with Cesar Romero, Don Ameche, and Sonja Henie; the box office hit Alexander's Ragtime Band, a pastiche of Irving Berlin songs interpolated into a plot that vaguely paralleled the composer's life; and Straight, Place or Show, a critical and commercial flop starring the Ritz Brothers.^[22] She returned to the stage in Stars in Your Eyes, which struggled to survive while the public flocked to the 1939 New York World's Fair instead and finally closed short of four months.^[23] Merman followed this with two more Porter musicals. DuBarry Was a Lady, with Bert Lahr and Betty Grable, ran for a year,^[24] and Panama Hattie, with Betty Hutton, June Allyson, and Arthur Treacher, fared even better, lasting slightly more than fourteen months.^[25]

Shortly after the opening of the latter, Merman—still despondent about the end of her affair with Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley—married her first husband, Treacher's agent William Smith. She later said she knew on their wedding night she had made "a dreadful mistake," and two months later she filed for divorce on grounds of desertion.^[26] Shortly after she met and married Robert D. Levitt, promotion director for the New York Journal-American. The two eventually had two children and divorced in 1952 due to his excessive drinking and erratic behavior.^[27]

In 1943, Merman was a featured performer in the film Stage Door Canteen and opened in another Porter musical, Something for the Boys, produced by Michael Todd. Her next project was Sadie Thompson, a Vernon Duke/Howard Dietz musical adaptation of a W. Somerset Maugham short story, but Merman found she was unable to retain the lyrics and resigned twelve days after rehearsals began.^[28]

In August 1945, while in the hospital recovering from the Caesarean birth of her second child, Merman was visited by Dorothy Fields, who proposed she star as Annie Oakley in a musical she and her brother Herbert were writing with Jerome Kern. Merman accepted, but in November Kern suffered a stroke while in New York City visiting Rodgers and Hammerstein (the producers of the show) and died a few days later. Producers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II invited Irving Berlin to replace him,^[29] and the result was Annie Get Your Gun, which opened on May 16, 1946 at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for nearly three years and 1,147 performances.^[30] During that time, Merman took only two vacations and missed only two performances due to illness.^[31] Merman lost the film version to Judy Garland, who eventually was replaced by Betty Hutton, but she did star in a Broadway revival two decades later.

Merman and Berlin reunited for Call Me Madam in 1950, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, and she went on to star in the 1953 screen adaptation as well, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance. The following year she appeared as the matriarch of the singing and dancing Donahue family in There's No Business Like Show Business, a film with a Berlin score.

Merman returned to Broadway at the behest of her third husband, Continental Airlines executive Robert Six, who was upset she had chosen to become a Colorado housewife following their wedding in 1953. He expected her public appearances to engender publicity for the airline, and her decision to forgo the limelight did not sit well with him. He urged her to accept the lead in Happy Hunting, with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (who had written Call Me Madam) and a score by the unknown team of Harold Karr and Matt Dubey. Merman acquiesced to her husband's demands, although she clashed with the composers from the start and soon was at odds with co-star Fernando Lamas and his wife Arlene Dahl, who frequently attended rehearsals. Based on the Merman name, the show opened in New York with an advance sale of $1.5 million and, despite the star's dissatisfaction with it, garnered respectable reviews. Although Brooks Atkinson thought the score was "hardly more than adequate", he called Merman "as brassy as ever, glowing like a neon light whenever she steps on the stage." Several months into the run, she insisted two of her least favorite numbers be replaced by songs written by her friend Roger Edens who, because of his exclusive contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, credited them to Kay Thompson. She lost the Tony Award to Judy Holliday in Bells Are Ringing, and the show closed after 412 performances, with Merman happy to see what she considered "a dreary obligation" finally come to an end.^[32]

Later career[link]

Merman and Tyrone Power in the trailer for Alexander's Ragtime Band

Perhaps Merman's most legendary performance opened on May 21, 1959 at The Broadway Theatre. Gypsy was based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee and starred Merman as her domineering stage mother Rose Hovick. In the New York Post, Richard Watts called her "a brilliant actress," and Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times said "she gives an indomitable performance, both as actress and singer." Despite the acclaim, Merman lost the Tony Award to her close friend Mary Martin in The Sound of Music and jokingly quipped, "How are you going to buck a nun?" Shortly after she divorced Six when his affair with television actress Audrey Meadows became public, and she found solace in her work.^[33]

Throughout the 702-performance run of Gypsy, Mervyn LeRoy saw it numerous times, and he repeatedly assured Merman that he planned to cast her in the film adaptation he was preparing. Shortly prior to the show's closing, however, it was announced that Rosalind Russell had been signed to star instead. Russell's husband, theatre producer Frederick Brisson (whom Merman later called "the lizard of Roz"^{[citation needed]}), had sold the screen rights to the Leonard Spigelgass play A Majority of One to Warner Bros. with the stipulation that his wife star in both films. Because Russell was still a major box office draw, with the success of Auntie Mame a few years earlier, and Merman never having established herself as a popular screen presence, the studio agreed to Brisson's terms. Merman was devastated at this turn of events and called the loss of the role "the greatest professional disappointment of my life." ^[34]

Merman's publicity photo from her appearance on Batman, 1967.

Following the Broadway closing of Gypsy on March 25, 1961, Merman half-heartedly embarked on the national tour. In San Francisco, she severely injured her back but continued to play to packed houses. During the Los Angeles run, LeRoy visited her backstage and claimed Russell was so ill "I think you're going to end up getting this part." Believing that the film version of Gypsy was within her grasp, she generously gave him the many house seats he requested for friends and industry colleagues, only to discover she had been duped.^[35]

Over the next several years, Merman was featured in two films, the wildly successful It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the flop The Art of Love, and made dozens of television appearances, guesting on variety series hosted by Perry Como, Red Skelton, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, and Carol Burnett, on talk shows with Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett, and Merv Griffin, and in episodes of That Girl, The Lucy Show, Batman, and Tarzan, among others.

Producer David Merrick encouraged Jerry Herman to compose Hello, Dolly! specifically for Merman's vocal range, but when he offered her the role she declined it. She finally joined the cast on March 28, 1970, six years after the production opened. On her opening night, her performance was continually brought to a halt by prolonged standing ovations, and the critics unanimously heralded her return to the New York stage. Walter Kerr described her voice "exactly as trumpet-clean, exactly as pennywhistle-piercing, exactly as Wurlitzer-wonderful as it always was." The seventh actress to portray the scheming matchmaker, she remained with the musical for 210 performances until it closed on December 27. She received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for what proved to be her last appearance on Broadway.

For the remainder of her career, Merman worked as frequently as offers were made. In 1979, she recorded The Ethel Merman Disco Album, with many of her signature show-stoppers set to a disco beat. Her last screen role was a self-parody in the 1980 comedy film Airplane!, in which she portrayed Lieutenant Hurwitz, a shell shocked soldier who thinks he is Ethel Merman. In the cameo appearance, Merman leaps out of bed singing Everything's Coming Up Roses as orderlies restrain her. She appeared in multiple episodes of The Love Boat (playing Gopher's mother), guested on a CBS Television tribute to George Gershwin, did a summer comedy/concert tour with Carroll O'Connor, played a two-week engagement at the London Palladium, performed with Mary Martin in a concert benefitting the theatre and museum collection of the Museum of the City of New York, and frequently appeared as a soloist with symphony orchestras. She also volunteered at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, working in the gift shop or visiting patients.

Later life and death[link]

With advancing age, Merman began to become forgetful, and on occasion had difficulty with her speech, and at times her behavior was erratic, causing concern among her friends.

On April 7, 1983, she was preparing to leave for Los Angeles to appear on the 55th Academy Awards telecast when she collapsed in her apartment. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma and underwent brain surgery to have the malignant tumor removed.

Early on the morning of February 15, 1984, she died in her sleep. Her private funeral service was held in a chapel at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, where she had frequently worshipped. On October 10, 1984, an auction of her personal effects, including furniture, artwork, and theatre memorabilia, earned in excess of $120,000 at Christie's East.^[36]

Performance style[link]

Merman was known for her powerful, belting mezzo-soprano voice, precise enunciation and pitch.^[37] Because stage singers performed without microphones when Merman began singing professionally, she had a great advantage, despite the fact that she never took any singing lessons. In fact, Broadway lore holds that George Gershwin advised her never to take a singing lesson after she opened in his Girl Crazy.^[38]

Personal life[link]

Ethel Merman at the typewriter in 1953, New York World-Telegram photo by Walter Albertin

Merman was married and divorced four times:

1. William Smith, theatrical agent (1940–1941)
2. Robert Levitt, a newspaper executive (1941–1952)
3. Robert Six, President, Continental Airlines (1953–1960)
4. Ernest Borgnine, the actor, in 1964. Merman filed for divorce 32 days later.

With Levitt, Merman had two children: Ethel (born July 20, 1942). and Robert Jr. (born August 11, 1945), they divorced in 1952. Ethel Levitt died in 1967 of a drug overdose that was ruled accidental. Her son, Robert, was married to actress Barbara Colby.

Merman co-wrote two memoirs, Who Could Ask for Anything More? (1955) and Merman (1978). In a radio interview, Merman commented on her many marriages, saying that "We all make mistakes, that's why they put rubbers on pencils, and that's what I did. I made a few loo-loos!"^[39] In the latter book, the chapter entitled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" consists of one blank page.

Merman was notorious for her love of vulgar jokes. She delighted in telling dirty jokes and vulgar stories at public parties. For instance, she once shouted a dirty joke across the room at José Ferrer during a formal reception. Merman also enjoyed sending out greeting cards with obscene jokes in them. Merman was known for swearing during rehearsals and meetings. While rehearsing a guest appearance on The Loretta Young Show, she was told she had to pay $1 each time she swore since Young could not abide foul language. As she was being shoehorned into an ill fitting gown for the next number Merman exclaimed, "Oh shit, this damn thing's too tight." Young advanced on her waving her curse box and said, "Come on Ethel, put a dollar in. You know my rules." Merman's retort reportedly was, "Ah, honey, how much will it cost me to tell you to go fuck yourself?"

Merman was a lifelong Republican, and during the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration, she was a frequent guest at The White House^[40]. She even appeared at the 1956 Republican National Convention with Jane Powell, Irene Dunne, Wendell Corey, and George Murphy^[41].

In popular culture[link]

• The character "Helen Lawson" in Jacqueline Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls is based on Ethel Merman.

• Ethel Merman is mentioned in the 1982 movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

• The British Psychobilly band The Meteors recorded an instrumental called "Return Of The Ethel Merman" for their 1986 album Sewertime Blues.

• In the play "Red Herring" by Michael Hollinger, one of the lead characters comments on his marriage to a 'different' Ethel Merman than the one who sang "There's No Business Like Show Business."

• Merman is mentioned a lot in the musical series Forbidden Broadway making fun of the wireless microphones and soft singing used in The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical).

• In the film Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), USAF radio disc jockey Adrian Cronauer (played by Robin Williams) alluded to Merman's distinctive, brassy style and powerful voice during one of his improvised comic news bulletins. "Ethel Merman used to jam Russian radar. {belting in imitation of Merman} 'Oh, I've got a feeling that love is here to stay!' When asked for a reply, the Russians said 'Vat de hell vas dat?'"

• Robin Williams imitates Merman again in the song "Prince Ali" from the Disney animated feature Aladdin (1992).

• In the 1990 Seinfeld episode "The Robbery", Elaine complains about her actress roommate by telling Jerry she is "living with Ethel Merman without the talent."

• In the early 1990s, the television program Sesame Street created a parody character called "Miss Ethel Mermaid" (voiced and puppeteered by Louise Gold) she sang "I Get A Kick Out Of U" (a parody of Merman singing "I Get A Kick Out Of You").^{[citation needed]} The character would reappear in an episode of Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures which is shown as a segment on the American version of Sesame Street.

• In the film The Producers (2005), the actor playing the part of Adolf Hitler, Roger de Bris, sings the lyric "I'm the German Ethel Merman, don'tcha know."

• In the song "Change the World" by Nellie McKay, off her debut album "Get Away from Me", she sings "Please Ethel Merman help me out this jam".^{[citation needed]}

• Merman's final on-screen appearance was in the film Airplane! (1980), where she has a cameo as shell-shocked soldier "Lt. Hurwitz", who believes he is Ethel Merman. She briefly sings her classic "Everything's Coming Up Roses".

• Merman is mentioned in the film Terms of Endearment (1983), and even appears on the soundtrack.

• In the 2000 episode of Saturday Night Live, a segment called "The Ladies Man" featuring Dwayne Johnson and Tim Meadows where Meadows was Leon Phelps described Johnson's cross-dressing undercover police lady character that when he first saw him she was dressed up like a young Ethel Merman. "It was wall to wall: big sexy ladies" Meadows character Leon described. "Tell them who you were" said Leon and Johnson responded back "I was Ethel Merman". "A Young Ethel Merman, she was sexy!"^{[citation needed]}

• Popular blogger Ree Drummond of award-winning blog, The Pioneer Woman, frequently mentions Merman in her posts, and says she "channels Lucille Ball, Vivien Leigh, and Ethel Merman".

Audio samples of Ethel Merman[link]

Courtesy of NPR Windows Media Player Required

• Ethel Merman with Jimmy Durante "You Say the Nicest Things"
• Ethel Merman Sings: "The World is Your Balloon"
• Ethel Merman Sings: "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend"

Theatre performances[link]

Ethel Merman in a trailer for Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

• Girl Crazy (1930)
• George White's Scandals of 1931 (1931)
• Take a Chance (1932)
• Anything Goes (1934)
• Red, Hot and Blue (1936)
• Stars in Your Eyes (1939)
• DuBarry Was a Lady (1939)
• Panama Hattie (1940)
• Something for the Boys (1943)
• Sadie Thompson (1944) (left during rehearsals; replaced by June Havoc)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1946)
• Call Me Madam (1950)
• Happy Hunting (1956)
• Gypsy (1959)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1966) (revival)
• Call Me Madam (1968) (revival) (summer stock)
• Hello, Dolly! (1970) (replacement)
• Mary Martin & Ethel Merman: Together On Broadway (1977) (benefit concert)

Filmography[link]

In the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)

• Follow the Leader (1930)
• Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1932)
• We're Not Dressing (1934)
• Kid Millions (1934)
• The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
• Strike Me Pink (1936)
• Anything Goes (1936)
• Happy Landing (1938)
• Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
• Straight, Place or Show (1938)
• Stage Door Canteen (1943)
• Call Me Madam (1953)
• There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
• The Art of Love (1965)
• Journey Back to Oz (1974) (voice)
• Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
• Airplane! (1980)

Television[link]

Ethel Merman in a trailer for Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)

• The Ford 50th Anniversary Show (1953)
• The Colgate Comedy Hour (1954) Episode Anything Goes
• Panama Hattie (1954)
• Merman On Broadway (1961)
• The Lucy Show, two-parter, as herself (1963)
• The Judy Garland Show, two episodes (1963)
• Maggie Brown (1963) (unsold pilot)
• An Evening with Ethel Merman (1965)
• Annie Get Your Gun (1967)
• Tarzan and the Mountains of the Moon (1967)
• Batman, "The Sport of Penguins", two-parter as Lola Lasagne (1967)
• That Girl, two episodes, as herself (1967–1968)
• 'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin (1972)
• Ed Sullivan's Broadway (1973)
• The Muppet Show (1976)
• Match Game PM (1976), (1978)
• You're Gonna Love It Here (1977) (unsold pilot)
• A Salute to American Imagination (1978)
• A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978)
• Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979) (voice)
• The Love Boat, five episodes, Roz Smith (1979–1982)
• Night of 100 Stars (1982)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ethel Merman

• Ethel Merman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ethel Merman | PlaybillVault.com
• Ethel Merman at the Internet Movie Database
• Ethel Merman at Allmusic
• They Say She Was Wonderful: Ethel Merman at 100, The House Next Door By N.P. Thompson
• Obituary, The New York Times, February 16, 1984, "Ethel Merman, Queen of Musicals, Dies at 76"
• NPR's Susan Stamberg's Report on the Memory of Ethel Merman

Ann Miller
in Small Town Girl (1953)
Born	Johnnie Lucille Collier (1923-04-12)April 12, 1923 Chireno, Texas, U.S.
Died	January 22, 2004(2004-01-22) (aged 80) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Years active	1934 - 2001
Spouse	Reese Milner (1946-1947) Bill Moss (1958-1961) Arthur Cameron (1961-1962)

Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller (April 12, 1923^[1] – January 22, 2004) was an American dancer, singer and actress. She is remembered for her work in Hollywood musical films of the 1940s and '50s.

Early life[link]

Miller was born in Chireno, Texas to Clara Emma (née Birdwell) and John Alfred Collier, a criminal lawyer who represented the Barrow Gang, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson, among others.^[2][3] Miller's maternal grandmother was Cherokee.^[2] Miller's father insisted on the name Johnnie because he had wanted a boy, but she was often called Annie.^[2] She took up dancing to exercise her legs to help her rickets. She was considered a child dance prodigy. In an interview featured in a "behind the scenes" documentary on the making of the compilation film That's Entertainment III, she said that Eleanor Powell was an early inspiration.^[4]

Career[link]

At the age of 13 Miller had been hired as a dancer in the "Black Cat Club" in San Francisco (she reportedly told them she was 18). It was there she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin. This led Miller to be given a contract with RKO in 1936 at the age of 13 (she had also told them she was 18) and she remained there until 1940.^[5] The following year, Miller was offered a contract at Columbia Pictures. She finally hit her mark in MGM musicals such as Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

Miller popularized pantyhose in the 1940s--but had been wearing them after 1938--as a solution to the continual problem of tearing stockings during the filming of dance production numbers. The common practice had been to sew hosiery to briefs. If torn, the entire garment had to be removed and resewn with a new pair. At Miller's request, hosiery was manufactured for her as a single pantyhose.^[6]

Miller was famed for her speed in tap dancing. Studio publicists concocted press releases claiming she could tap 500 times per minute, but in truth, the sound of ultra-fast "500" taps was looped in later. Because the stage floors were slick and slippery, she actually danced in shoes with rubber soles. Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and actually dancing on a "tap board" to match her steps in the film.^[6]

In 1970, satirist Stan Freberg, father of the funny commercial, used Miller and her tap-dancing skills in a television commercial for "Great American Soups." Miller initially plays a housewife asked by her "husband" (Dave Willock) what she's prepared for dinner. She throws off her house frock to reveal a sequined dance outfit, and the kitchen set splits open to reveal a huge Hollywood stage, showcasing a giant can of soup, atop which Miller sings and dances, accompanied by a double chorus line. At the end of the commercial, she returns to the kitchen set, where the husband character exclaims, "Why do you have to make such a big 'production' out of everything?" According to Freberg, the commercial cost so much to produce that little money was left in the advertising budget to purchase airtime for it. The commercial can be seen on the video accompanying Freberg's boxed set release, The Tip of the Freberg.^{[citation needed]}

She was known, especially later in her career, for her distinctive appearance, which reflected a studio-era ideal of glamor: massive black bouffant hair, heavy makeup with a slash of crimson lipstick, and fashions that emphasized her lithe figure and long dancer's legs. Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost steam to television, but she remained active in the theatre and on television. She starred on Broadway in the musical Mame in 1969, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her. 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. In 1983, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

She appeared in a special 1982 episode of The Love Boat, joined by fellow showbiz legends Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Van Johnson, and Cab Calloway in a storyline that cast them as older relatives of the show's regular characters. In 2001 she took her last role, playing Coco in auteur director David Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive. Her last stage performance was a 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, in which she played the hardboiled survivor Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the song "I'm Still Here".^[7]

Miller with Betty Garrett (left) and Vera-Ellen (right) in On the Town (1949)

Miller also appeared as a dance instructor to Tim and Jill in Home Improvement episode "Dances with Tools" (1993).^[8]

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ann Miller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd.

Between 1995 and 2001, Molly Shannon parodied Miller several times on Saturday Night Live in a sketch entitled Leg-Up!

She died, aged 80, from lung cancer, and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Miller, Ann, Miller's High Life. Doubleday, 1972. ISBN #0-385-03440-7.
• Oderman, Stuart, Talking to the Piano Player 2. BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN #1-59393-320-7.

External links[link]

	Biography portal
	Ballet portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ann Miller

• Ann Miller at the Internet Movie Database
• Ann Miller at the Internet Broadway Database
• Profile @ Turner Classic Movies
• BBC obituary
• "Ann Miller". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5832474. Retrieved August 9, 2010. 
• Photographs and literature
• Great American Soup Commercial at YouTube