Ann Miller

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Pin-up photo of Ann Miller for Yank, the Army Weekly 1945

Ann Miller , actually Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier (born April 12, 1923 in Houston , Texas , † January 22, 2004 in Los Angeles , California ), was an American actress and dancer .

Career

Texan Ann Miller was trained early on by her ambitious mother for a career in show business. She first took tap dance lessons and from 1934 made small film appearances. As early as 1937, she received a contract with RKO Pictures after her family had misled the producers with a false birth certificate that she was 18 years old. Among other things, this led to the curious situation that at the age of 15 she was already playing a wife in Frank Capras, which won two Oscar- winning comedy artists . From the beginning of the 1940s she worked for Columbia , where she appeared in countless B-films and inexpensive musicals such as What's Buzzin 'Cousins? or She Knew Her Apples performed. Often used by the studio as the second heroine alongside Jinx Falkenburg , Miller was committed to portraying rather easy-going revue girls with a heart of gold.

However, her full talent as a dancer did not develop fully until she switched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1946. MGM had just started the famous golden age of musicals under the aegis of Arthur Freed , Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli . Studio boss Louis B. Mayer was also personally taken with Miller and offered her several times to marry her. She refused the applications in such a binding and friendly manner that Mayer never resented the decision or held it against her. In the following years, Ann Miller was in films like The Kissing Bandit , Easter Walk , Today We Go Strolling and Carnival in Texas to see. In the adaptation of the Broadway classic Kiss me, which was produced with a lot of effort and in 3-D , Kate Miller practically stole the film by Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel as Bianca . Overall, however, the actress lacked the dramatic talent to play leading roles and with the demise of the musical around the middle of the decade, she ended her film career in 1956.

In the following years, Ann Miller, whose trademark was an enormously high-backed hairstyle, which did not go out of control even with the wildest dance routines, was seen as a successful solo dancer in exclusive nightclubs and on television. In 1969 she took over the lead role in Mame from Angela Lansbury and was last seen in 1979 in the Sugar Babies revue . In 1993 she gave Tim Allen alias Tim Taylor in the television series Listen, Who Hammered (Season 2, Episode 16) as Mrs. Keeney as agile and amusing dance lessons. David Lynch was able to convince her to play a supporting role in his critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive in 2001 .

Ann Miller was married three times, all marriages ended in divorce. She also had affairs with Louis B. Mayer, Howard Hughes, and Conrad Hilton . She died of lung cancer at age 80 and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City , California .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1934: Anne of Green Gables
  • 1937: New Faces of 1937
  • 1937: Stage Door (Stage Door)
  • 1938: The Marx Brothers: Room Service
  • 1938: Lebenskünstler (You Can't Take It with You)
  • 1941: Time Out for Rhythm
  • 1943: Reveille with Beverly
  • 1946: Samba fever (The Thrill of Brazil)
  • 1948: Easter Parade (Easter Parade)
  • 1948: The Kissing Bandit
  • 1949: Today we're going for a stroll (On the Town)
  • 1950: Half-length portrait please! (Watch the Birdie)
  • 1951: Texas Carnival
  • 1951: Three women conquer New York (Two Tickets to Broadway)
  • 1952: Lovely to Look at
  • 1953: Small Town Girl
  • 1953: Kiss me, Katchen! (Kiss me, kate)
  • 1954: Deep in my Heart
  • 1955: Hit the Deck
  • 1956: The Opposite Sex
  • 1956: The Great American Pastime
  • 1976: Won Ton Ton - The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood)
  • 1993: Listen to Who's Hammering ( Home Improvement ; TV series, 1 episode)
  • 2001: Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness (Mulholland Dr.)

Web links

Commons : Ann Miller  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry at filmreference.com.
  2. ↑ Ann Miller's obituary at the Guardian
  3. ^ Ann Miller's obituary in the New York Times
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Ann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Collier, Johnnie Lucille Ann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress and dancer
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Houston , Texas , United States
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 2004
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States