Mitzi Gaynor, The Iconic Star of the 1958 film South Pacific, passes away on October 17,2024

Mitzi Gaynor, whose singing and dancing brightened Hollywood musicals throughout the 1950s, including trying unsuccessfully to “wash that man right outa my hair” as nurse Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific,” has died at the age of 93.

Gaynor died peacefully of natural causes, her management team said on Thursday. “For eight decades she entertained audiences in films, on television and on the stage…. Off stage she was a vibrant and extraordinary woman, a caring and loyal friend, and a warm, gracious, very funny and altogether glorious human beings,” they wrote on X.

Gaynor was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago. Her mother was a dancer and her father a violinist and musical director. After a move to California she became part of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, adding three years to her age to make the company believe she was 16. Executives from 20th century Fox Spotted her and offered her a contract.

Gaynor had prominent roles in “There’s No Business Like Show Business” in 1954 with Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe and in the 1957 films “Les Girls” with Gene Kelly and the The Joker Is Wild” with Frank Sinatra. The previous year she starred with Bing Crosby and Donald O’Connor in “Anything Goes,” singing Cole Porter’s title song.

Gaynor’s movie career lasted a little more than a decade but she went on to success as a nightclub performer and put on a series of annual television variety specials in the 1960s and 1970s. She was still performing an autobiographical stage show – a mix of singing, dancing and remembrances titled “Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins” – in her 80s.

As her career was building, Gaynor dated industrialist-studio chief Howard Hughes.

She said, “He was dashing, handsome, rich, mysterious. I fell madly in love with him. There were airplanes, a whirlwind courtship and after five months, he proposed.” She broke it off and instead married Jack Bean, who would become her manager and only husband.

Gaynor’s Hollywood highlight was the film version of Richard Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1949 stage musical “South Pacific,” which had won 10 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The 1958 movie had been long awaited and Gaynor was cast in the prized role that Mary Martin had played on Broadway.