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!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! ADORE the prayer candle! She really is a patron saint!!!! I loved her too Maddie!
ReplyDeleteJust watched "On The Town" again, and she is great in that one, too. I got to see her in "Sugar Babies" alongside Mickey Rooney in Chicago with William in the early 1980s, and even then she could still tap dance like nobody's business.
The first picture cracked me up! If you had indeed gotten that wig and wore it for drag numbers, you'd be drag royalty for that alone!!!! Happy Birthday Ann!
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed her in “Easter Parade” and that musical episode of “The Love Boat.” She said that Eleanor Powell was her inspiration, and you can tell. However, both were phenomenal in their own ways.
ReplyDeleteAnn Miller had such a lovely smile, too. But boy, could she move those feet.
When I came upon her the first time is was completely mesmerized. She had to be one of the best dancers in Hollywood along with Astaire and Rodgers. My favorite Ann Miller performance is the song “Tom, Dick, and Harry” from Kiss Me Kate - it’s just so damn funny and she plays it with a straight face.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise this old queen that you'd love Ann Miller. But good it does. LOVED HER!
ReplyDeleteAnd humor she had. I once read that a close chum remembers Ann once asking her to look up Arlene Dahl’s phone number in Ann’s own phone book. When the friend could find no listing under “D” or even “A,” Ann took the book and immediately turned to the proper page: “G” for “girlfriend.” And another time was asked if she'd be performing during Passover, to which she relied, "I never do game shows."
Those Miller-isms never stopped, and they tickled everybody; she herself never quite understood what was so funny. To some they made her seem like a raven-haired Lorelei Lee, but her friends knew better: It was just Ann being Ann, which also meant no malice was ever attached. Her pals also knew she was, most importantly, as consistently kind-hearted and loyal a person as you’d ever find, that proverbial “good egg” who was as lively and positive as she was unpredictable and, until lately, unsinkable. In spite of a long and increasingly debilitating illness, she always had cheery words for everyone she met and always made sure she looked like a million dollars. Great post for the day Mistress!
That was what a star looked like!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine your disappointment after not getting the wig!!! LOL! The prayer candle!!!
ReplyDeleteThe incomparable Ann Miller. You can’t take your eyes off of her in ANY scene she is in. What a talent! She stomped a floor into submission.
She had that "thing" that many didn't then and don't today.
ReplyDeleteMademoiselle Miller, un danseur et artiste exceptionnel dans les comédies musicales hollywoodiennes.
ReplyDeleteLes films étaient populaires en France.
Et quels hommes superbes dans ces films, les directeurs de casting ne pouvaient qu’être gays :)
-Beau Mec à Deauville
I've fallen in love with Ann once again, just seeing these pictures. It's true that exercise does a body good, as exemplified by the dancers from the MGM Studios factory and the other Hollywood studios. May we also remember the others who entertained the world during the golden days of motion pictures-Eleanor Powell, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds, Mitzi Gaynor, Lucille Bremer and many, many more...What's not to love?
ReplyDeleteIf interested, find the movie "Deep in my Heart" 1954 and watch Miss Miller dance a tap/charleston that'll blow your mind with so much energy the rest of us would have collapsed in the first minute.
ReplyDeleteOh, I wish you had gotten that wig... by any means! And, OK, yes, she could tap!
ReplyDelete