Mitzi Gaynor, the midcentury Hollywood celebrity who appeared in the movie plays” South Pacific”,” Les Girls” and” There’s No Business Like Show Business”, died Thursday. She was 93.
In a statement posted to her official , X , accounts, Gaynor’s management team, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, said she “passed aside calmly now of natural reasons”.
She entertained viewers in movies, on tv, and on the stage for eight years. She really enjoyed every moment of her specialist job and the great honor of being an entertainer, Reyes and Rosamonda said. ” Off step, she was a lively and extraordinary person, a nurturing and loyal friend, and a warm, gracious, really funny and entirely beautiful human being. And , she had cook to”!
Gaynor, they said, frequently noted that her people were” the light of my living”.
The actress, singer, and dancer began dancing when she was 8 years old, taking dance and tap dancing classes, and after appearing in the L.A. Civic Light Opera in her early teens. She danced in her 20s when shooting 1958’s” South Pacific”, in which she played Ensign Nellie Forbush in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s music. She also won viewers ‘ hearts with her 1950s movies” Anything Goes” with Bing Crosby and” The Joker Is Wild” with Frank Sinatra.
After in her job, she endeared herself to younger people in some TV offers. She also had a big job onscreen, notably starring in her monthly” Mitzi Gaynor Show” doing stand-up sitcom in which she delivered her parts in dialects, one of which she attributed to her father, a musician born in Hungary. She also appeared in the national tour of” Whatever Goes” from 1980 to 1990.
” We take great comfort in the fact that her artistic legacy will continue to be reflected in her numerous wonderful shows that were captured on film and picture, in her recordings, and in particular through the love and support that people have given her throughout her life and career,” her crew said.
Gaynor was born on September 4, 1931, in Chicago to a cellist father and ballroom dancer mother who had a strong support system for their daughter’s early interest in the performing arts. Her birth name was Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber.
My mother and aunt took me to see Carmen Miranda in the stage production” The Streets of Paris” when I was 9 years old. I was mesmerized”! she told , Closer , earlier this year. ” I remember telling my mother,’ I can do that. I want to do that.’ From that point on, everything became about making” Totie,” my childhood nickname, a star.
Two years later, Gaynor’s family relocated to Hollywood, and at 17, the trained ballerina was signed to a seven-year deal at 20th Century Fox. A studio executive persuaded her to change her name, because he said it sounded like a delicatessen, she told , CBS  , in 2019.
” He said,’ How about Gaynor, ]like ] Janet Gaynor?’ My father loved it”, she said.
Gaynor made her film debut in a supporting role in the musical” My Blue Heaven” ( 1950 ) alongside Betty Grable. The brand-newcomer fell in love with her well-known co-star.
” I would follow her into the john if she had to go to the bathroom” , , she said in 2012.
Soon after that, Fox gave Gaynor her first starring role in” Golden Girl” ( 1951 ). Appearances rapidly followed in” Bloodhounds of Broadway” ( 1952 ),” Down Among the Sheltering Palms” ( 1953 ), and” There’s No Business Like Show Business” ( 1954), featuring Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe.
Also in 1954, Gaynor married her agent, Jack Bean, who then quit his job at MCA to start a publicity firm. Bean served as Gaynor’s husband and manager for more than 50 years before he passed away in 2006. The couple never had children.
In 1960, two years after Gaynor’s Golden Globe-nominated performance in” South Pacific”, Gaynor and Bean bought their , Spanish-style villa in Beverly Hills, where they frequently entertained guests. Gaynor received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that year. ( Later, her several television specials were nominated for , 17 Emmy awards, winning six.  , )
Toward the end of her career, Gaynor reinvented herself as a performing entertainer. She performed in numerous nightclubs throughout the United States, making her Manhattan nightclub debut in 2010 at the age of 78 with her show” Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins”.
Known for her glitzy costumes, Gaynor reminisced about the “lost art” of dressing in a 1993 , interview with The Times.
” I ca n’t handle grunge. I ca n’t handle the chic of it. Dressing has become a popular pastime while dressing up is really becoming a lost art, she said. ” But for those of us living during the ‘ 50s and ‘ 60s, dressing up was real. All of those things — the lashes, the heels, the glamour — they were real to us”.
She claimed that when she met Bob Mackie, a well-known designer, she first encountered him. Upon their introduction, Gaynor mistook the young visionary for a fan.
” I said,’ Oh my God, you’re 13 years old”! Gaynor said, adding that she” just about fainted” the first time she saw his sketches. Mackie then developed almost 500 costume designs for the movie star turned Vegas showgirl.
Last year, Gaynor celebrated her 92nd birthday, thanking her fans for their longtime support , on social media.
Quoting” Singin’ in the Rain” producer Arthur Freed, she wrote:” Why am I smiling and why do I sing? Why does December appear to be sunny as spring? Why do I wake up each morning and begin? ” Happiness and head up with joy in my heart.”
” It’s because of all of you”.
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