Ann Miller; Independent obit (and it's great)
Hyfler/Rosner
Dancing star and 'Queen of the Bs'
24 January 2004
Johnnie Lucille Collier (Ann Miller), actress: born
Houston, Texas 12 April 1923; married 1946 Reese Milner (one
daughter deceased; marriage dissolved 1947), 1958 William
Moss (marriage dissolved 1961), 1961 Arthur Cameron
(marriage dissolved 1962); died Los Angeles 22 January 2004.
The long-legged whirlwind tap-dancer Ann Miller was one of
Hollywood's greatest dancing stars. Her dynamic machine-gun
tapping (she claimed a record of 500 taps a minute) was
allied to a vivacious personality and an undervalued skill
as a comedienne. Her only rival for the title of the
screen's supreme female tap-dancing star would be her
predecessor Eleanor Powell, whom Miller acknowledged as an
inspiration and influence. To argue a preference is as
pointless as debating the ranking of Fred Astaire and Gene
Kelly. Miller, though, was a finer actress, and gave
memorable performances in such classic film musicals as
Easter Parade, On the Town and Kiss Me Kate.
Before her days in such major productions for MGM, she had
spent years gracing low-budget movies, earning the title
"Queen of the Bs". Even when she made top-grade films at
MGM, she was rarely starred. That was to come when Hollywood
virtually ceased musical production at the end of the
Fifties and Miller found success in the Broadway shows Mame
and Sugar Babies, the latter an affectionately bawdy tribute
to burlesque, co-starring Mickey Rooney. "At MGM, I always
played the second feminine lead; I was never the star in
films," she later recalled:
I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl. I never really had
my big moment on the screen. Sugar Babies gave me the
stardom that my soul kind of yearned for.
The show also made her incredibly rich - she appeared in it
for seven years at $30,000 a week and banked it all, living
off the interest. A tough negotiator who made her own deals
and bought and sold real estate, she also owned possibly the
country's largest collection of Native American jewellery.
Miller's private life was as colourful as her screen one,
her autobiography, Miller's High Life (1972), citing among
her husbands and lovers a prince, a Shah, a hotel tycoon, a
few maharajahs, Spanish bullfighters, oil millionaires and
international playboys. "I'm not boasting," she states:
I'm just trying to give an idea of the whole big world of
masculinity I might have had to choose from if I'd sense
enough to play my cards right. I knew Prince Rainier before
he married Grace Kelly, and Aly Kahn before he married Rita
Hayworth, and Aristotle Onassis before he married Jacqueline
Kennedy . . . and André Dubonnet, Jack Seabrook, who owned
Birds Eye, Randolph Churchill, the Maharajah of Cooch Behar
and the Maharajah of Baroda.
Born Johnnie Lucille Collier in 1923 in Houston, Texas, she
attended dancing school from the age of three. She was 11
when her parents divorced, and her mother took her to
Hollywood, where she worked in vaudeville and night-clubs
under the stage name of Anne Miller. (Her birthdate has
often been disputed because her mother claimed she was born
in 1919, in order to obtain work.)
Offered a three-week engagement by the Bal Tabarin Club in
San Francisco, she was held over for 16 weeks. Among the
club's customers were Lucille Ball, then an RKO starlet, and
the talent scout Benny Rubin. Ball thought she might be
right for movies, and Rubin arranged a screen test. The
result was a contract with RKO (who dropped the "e" from
Anne) in 1934. After small roles in Anne of Green Gables
(1934), The Good Fairy (1935) and The Devil on Horseback
(1936) she was given the chance to display her dancing
ability with a number in New Faces of 1937 (1937). The
choreographer Hermes Pan later remembered seeing her
rehearsing for the film and remarking, "It's a lie. Nobody
can tap that fast."
In Stage Door (1937), about theatrical hopefuls sharing a
boarding house, she performed a night-club dancing act with
Ginger Rogers. She then gave a very funny performance as a
ballet-mad child, part of an eccentric household, in Frank
Capra's You Can't Take It With You (1938). When RKO failed
to find good roles for her, Miller set her sights on the
theatre, and made her Broadway début in George White's
Scandals (1939). The New York Daily Mirror reported,
Ann is terrific. She's an eye tonic, has loads of style and
a personality that whirls with hurricane force across the
footlights.
When she returned to the screen in the Forties, she bore
less resemblance to Eleanor Powell and had developed her own
individuality. In Too Many Girls (1940) she danced a torrid
solo to "Spic 'n' Spanish" accompanied by Desi Arnaz on the
bongos, and won the approval of Variety, who commented, "Her
performance and ability should tie her up as a permanent
film fixture for filmusicals in the upper brackets." Miller
was to be a permanent part of Hollywood films for nearly 20
more years, but for the first seven of them the films would
not be in the upper brackets.
During most of the Forties, she graced "B" movies in which
she invariably was singled out as the best thing in them.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote of Hit Parade of 1941 (1940),
There should be a law against Ann Miller's ever taking time
off from dancing. The beauty, brilliance and consummate
grace of her artistry is an endless delight.
In 1941 she was signed by Columbia Pictures, which,
throughout the Second World War, starred her in a series of
modestly budgeted but zippy and cheerful musicals that not
only delighted wartime audiences but made Miller the
studio's second most popular female star after their
superstar, Rita Hayworth.
Her first was Time Out for Rhythm (1941), in which she was a
maid who is discovered by a talent scout (Rudy Vallee) when
he sees her dancing through the house while doing her
dusting duties. Over a dozen B movies followed, one of the
most notable being Reveille with Beverly (1943), in which
she was a disc jockey introducing such acts as Count Basie,
Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. "That film," said Ann,
"cost $350,000 to make and made Columbia $3m."
Hey, Rookie (1944), had the advantage of some rich musical
scoring by Saul Chaplin (who was later, like Miller, to move
to MGM). It included an entrancing adagio by Miller and Bill
Shawn to the song "Take a Chance". Jam Session (1944) was
another excuse to showcase a bunch of swing bands, including
those of Louis Armstrong and Teddy Powell, and it climaxed
with Miller dancing to Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's hit song
"Victory Polka".
When Eadie Was a Lady (1945) opened in New York, the critic
Kate Cameron wrote in the New York Sunday News,
Miss Miller is a capable and attractive entertainer and
deserves better by Columbia than the quickies she's been
assigned to. She has served her apprenticeship in the Bs and
the Cs and we'd like to see her blossom into an A star some
day.
Miller's last film for Columbia was a comparatively major
production, Thrill of Brazil (1946), which had the benefit
of a strong script, loosely based on The Front Page, and
some well-staged production numbers including Miller's
sizzling tap number "A Man is a Brother to a Mule".
In 1946 she married her first husband, Reese Milner, but
their relationship was stormy. When Miller was nine months
pregnant, a fight between the couple catapulted her down a
flight of stairs. Their daughter, born later that night,
died three hours later. Soon after they divorced. Earlier
Miller had enjoyed a relationship with Louis B. Mayer, which
started in 1944 when he was "on the rebound from his broken
romance with singer Ginny Sims".
When MGM was planning Easter Parade (1948), to star Judy
Garland, Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, the studio suddenly
found itself without two of its stars. Kelly broke an ankle,
and Charisse pulled a tendon. Astaire came out of retirement
to replace Kelly, and Mayer suggested to the producer Arthur
Freed that he test Miller for the part of Astaire's dancing
partner who deserts him to go solo. "To be in a picture with
Fred Astaire was every dancing girl's dream," said Miller:
And I won the role strictly on my own and not through my
erstwhile friendship with Mr Mayer, as some of the gossip
columnists implied. It was Freed and Astaire who made the
decision, though for a while it was touch and go . . . Fred
was hesitant because of my height. He finally agreed that I
could do the picture if I would wear ballet shoes in my
dancing scenes with him - the scenes could be shot so that
my feet wouldn't show. I also had to wear my hair flatter
than usual, with a low chignon, to make me appear shorter.
Miller partnered Astaire gracefully in their two short
duets, and had a perfect showcase for her staccato tapping
with a production number staged by Robert Alton to Irving
Berlin's "Shakin' the Blues Away". She performed the number
in a brace, since her back was still in traction from her
fall.
As soon as the film was completed, MGM gave Miller a
contract and cast her in the screen version of the Broadway
hit On the Town (1949), the tale of three sailors on 24-hour
shore leave and the three girls they meet. In this classic
musical, one of the first to be filmed partly in New York
itself, Miller was Claire Huddeson, a libidinous anthopology
student who is thrilled to find that sailor Ozzie (Jules
Munshin) is a living example of "Pithecanthropus erectus".
The discovery leads to her number "Prehistoric Man" (written
for the film by Roger Edens, Betty Comden and Adolph Green),
in which she leads the cast in an infectious celebration of
things native. Miller's superb comic timing is apparent in
this sequence, as is her flair with a throwaway remark later
when, asked if she can suggest a date for Gabey, the only
one of their group without a partner, she replies, "I don't
know any girls."
Miller was loaned to RKO to join Janet Leigh, Gloria DeHaven
and Barbara Lawrence as four hopefuls trying to get a
show-business break in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951).
Miller had one number, "The Worry Bird Song", which
showcased her sprightly tapping in a park setting. She
returned to MGM for a role in an enjoyable remake of Roberta
entitled Lovely to Look At (1952). Her major number, "I'll
Be Hard to Handle", was performed in a night-club setting
with her backing chorus of males wearing wolf-masks. "Spread
out boys, you bother me," she tells them in Mae West fashion
at the start of the number, and, as she exits to their
wolf-whistles at the finish, she comments, "The natives are
restless tonight."
Her role in Small Town Girl (1953) was not large - the film
was primarily a vehicle for Jane Powell and Farley Granger -
but it included one of her most celebrated numbers. Staged
by Busby Berkeley, "I've Got to Hear That Beat" had her
dancing on a stage through which protrude the arms of
musicians playing dozens of instruments, Miller dextrously
avoiding them as she tapped her way round the platform.
Miller's most important role at MGM, and the one she was
fondest of, was that of the dancer Lois Lane in the screen
version of the Broadway hit Kiss Me Kate (1953). Her old
friend Hermes Pan was the film's choreographer, and the part
gave her two of the finest songs in the great Cole Porter
score, "Always True to You Darling in My Fashion" and "Why
Can't You Behave", the latter leading to a stunning rooftop
dance with the acrobatic hoofer Tommy Rall. "Too Darn Hot",
sung by another character in the stage show, was given to
Miller as an opening number, which had her tapping furiously
while doing a sensuous mini-striptease, tossing jewellery
and clothing to the audience to accommodate the 3-D cameras.
Stanley Donen's Deep in my Heart (1954) was a biography of
the composer Sigmund Romberg with a host of guest stars
singing his music. A highlight of the film was Miller's
frenetic tapping to the song "It".
The producer Joe Pasternak announced that Miller would star
as Eva Peron (who had once been a dancer) in Woman with a
Whip, but the film was never made. Dore Schary had taken
over control of MGM's productions from Mayer, and Miller was
disappointed at the roles she was offered after her success
in Kiss Me Kate. Hit the Deck (1955) was to be the last film
in which she tap-danced, the highlights being a sultry
barefoot routine, "Lady from the Bayou", and the finale,
"Hallelujah", with Miller tapping on board a battleship.
She became the first film star to visit Australia when she
went there in 1955 to publicise Hit the Deck, and she proved
popular with her glamour, her vim and her gregarious
affability. Hermes Pan said,
Being a star is a commitment to Ann; she feels she owes the
public an obligation to show them what they want, and
expect, a star to look and act like. She is the true product
of the Golden Era of Hollywood - an era of glamour,
illusion, and escapism.
She also travelled to Egypt and Rome for the opening of
hotels owned by one of her boyfriends, Conrad Hilton. Her
other lovers included William V. O'Connor, the Assistant
Attorney General for the state of California. He was a
divorced Catholic who could not remarry while his former
wife was alive, and Miller later confessed that she married
her second husband, a Texas oilman, William Moss (former
husband of the actress Jane Withers), on the rebound from
O'Connor, her only true love. "That marriage was doomed from
the start," she said. They divorced in 1961. Later the same
year she married another oil millionaire, Arthur Cameron,
whom she had known for 20 years, but when she tried to
divorce him the following year he claimed that their Mexican
marriage was not legal. Miller later wrote,
All my husbands were handsome, rich and utterly charming
when they were sober. They were all basically playboys and
quite spoiled. All my husbands wanted to be married
bachelors, and I was too dumb to catch on.
After a non-dancing role in The Opposite Sex (1956), an
entertaining remake of The Women, Miller's last MGM movie
was a minor baseball comedy starring Tom Ewell, The Great
American Pastime (1956). "I loved working at MGM," she later
wrote:
Here I was actually eating lunch in the same commissary with
Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. I even saw Greta Garbo there
once, when she came to visit George Cukor . . . My so-called
reign spanned approximately a 10-year period, from 1948 to
1958, when I married my second husband. But those in-between
years were the happiest of my life.
Miller later had a cameo role in the all-star flop Won Ton
Ton, the Dog That Saved Hollywood (1976), and made her final
film, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, in 2001.
She made many small-screen appearances, and appeared in one
of the most famous of American television commercials. As a
housewife treating her husband to one of Heinz's Great
American Soups, she responds to a remark about "making a
production of everything" by breaking into song and dance
Thirties fashion, rising out of the ground while tapping on
top of a gigantic can of soup, backed by a 24-piece band, a
line of chorus girls and a 20ft-high "dancing waters"
special effect.
In 1969 she opened as the sixth Auntie Mame in the Broadway
musical Mame, which had been running for three years, and
audiences responded wildly. With Mickey Rooney in the revue
Sugar Babies from 1979 she won a Tony Award nomination, and
in 1989, when they brought it to the Savoy Theatre in
London, she was nominated for the Olivier Award.
Miller was recently seen in the television programme The 100
Best Musicals. Her main companions in later years were her
two poodles, and once a year she visited her jewels in their
bank vault. In 1979 she told the reporter Tex Reed,
I have worked like a dog all my life, honey. Dancing, as
Fred Astaire once said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat
and you slave and the audience doesn't think you've got a
brain in your head. So every time a good-looking millionaire
came along chasing me with cars and jewels, I married him
because he promised I'd never have to dance again.
Tom Vallance
Terrymelin
>Dancing star and 'Queen of the Bs'
Great obit but I've never heard her referred to as the "Queen of the B's"
before.
Terry Ellsworth