Full list by date of death

Mitzi Gaynor

Actress/dancer/singer

Born - 4 September 1930, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died - 17 October 2024

A long-legged singing and dancing star with peppy personality and lots of snap and crackle. A honey-blonde with deep brown eyes, born Franceska Marlene von Gerber - but always known as Mitzi - she was signed by Fox at 19 after stage work and made a low-key debut in the short It's Your Health (1949). But she was soon in showy star roles that emphasised her fizzy style: My Blue Heaven (1950), Take Care of My Little Girl (1951), Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1951), Golden Girl (1951), We're Not Married (1952), Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), The 'I Don't Care' Girl (1953), Three Young Texans (1954), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Anything Goes (1956), The Birds and the Bees (1956), Les Girls (1957) and The Joker is Wild (1957). She was not at her best in South Pacific (1958) - Doris Day wanted it and should have played it - and thereafter made only Happy Anniversary (1959), Surprise Package (1960) and For Love or Money (1963). Afterwards, she hit the nightclub circuit, performing in her show - Mitzi - Razzle Dazzle! - until she was 80. Her marriage to talent agent Jack Bean (wed 1954) lasted, although childless, until his death in 2006. Following her death from natural causes at 94, her agents issued a glowing appreciation that paid tribute to 'a vibrant and extraordinary woman...a funny and altogether glorious human being'.