87 year-old, Hollywood star of yesteryear, Mitzi Gaynor posted this video clip (below) on her Facebook page on Friday with the caption,
“Hi Kids, Happy Friday!
Here’s how I’m feeling heading into the weekend.
Love ya,
Mitzi”
Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in 1931, in Chicago, with showbiz literally in her blood. She was the daughter of a dancer, and a violinist, cellist, and music director. (While at Fox, a studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a deli, so they came up with a name that used the same initials.)
She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career in the corps de ballet. At 13, she was singing and dancing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera company lying about her address so she could attend Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood.
At 17 she signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox singing, acting, and dancing in a number of film musicals, with some of the biggest male musical stars of the day.
Gaynor’s most popular film in her time at Fox was There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), where she was billed after Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O’Connor and Johnnie Ray.
Here she is from the first of her TV specials, Mitzi in 1968. Here she GO-GO GOES. (Btw, that’s a Bob Mackie she’s wearing!)
Watch.
