Here at the Casa du Borghese it is a special day indeed on this sunny morning! It's the 103 Birthday of one of our favorite and adored Patron Saints.... The Patron Saint of beauty, big hair and toe tappin'....Ann Miller!!!!!!!
I have LONG adored Ann Miller! I even tried to bid on one of her wigs once at an auction but was outbid by some older queen. I was prepared to blow the old queen too to get my mits on it!!!! But I digress. When I lived in Bucks County I met a queen at the Raven Resort who was a friend of hers and regaled us with a story of a Bucks County Fourth of July picnic, with an American Revolution theme, on one of the farms, and to the delight of the guest, danced all the way across a cornfield and into a barn draped in the stars and stripes, and called herself "Betsy Ross on steroids."
Ann Miller was a very iconic Hollywood dancer and famed for her rapid-fire tap dancing, which was at reportedly 500 taps per minute...and she was known as her nickname "Million-dollar legs." Some fun facts about Ann Miller
- She was a child prodigy who lied about her age to work, and was discovered by Lucille Ball in a San Fracisco nightclub.
-Her tap shoes named Moe and Joe are displayed in the Smithsonian.
- The Inventor of Pantyhose. Tired of her stockings tearing during strenuous dance routines Miller worked with a manufacture to create a one-piece pantyhose which she popularized. Drag Queens everywhere still thank her.
-At a young age she began dancing to strengthen her legs after suffering from rickets.
-A prosthetic nose? After an injury left her nose with a crooked scar, she had a prosthetic extension made to conceal it, which Louis B Mayer reportedly hid in his safe from her during a hostile dispute.
-Ann Miller had past life belief-she believed she was an Egyptian queen in a previous life and often joked was the reason she had difficulties in her romantic relationships.
-She hit Boadway success in 1979 when she starred in Sugar Babies with Mickey Rooney which had a ten-year run.
-She appeared in over 50 movies and numerous tv appearances, with her final role in David Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive where she played Coco. And who could forget the fabulous appearance on the Love Boat along with Della Reese, Carol Channing and Ethel Merman?
-About the only downside was she was a very staunch Republican, attending many fundraisers and galas, and campaigned for the likes of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush's. But I can overlook this, we can't all be perfect.
- One of her wigs once saved her life when she one night, hit her head on a steel beam in St Louis while preforming in Anything Goes.
- Even in the end while suffering from crippling osteoporosis she told friend Esther Williams "I can still tap, but who wants to pay an old lady to tap sitting down?"
Our candle is lit! Ann Miller would have been 103 today!
