In 1987 at the age of 64, legendary tap dancer Ann Miller performed “Shakin’ the Blues Away” on the television special Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood. In 1988, Miller performed a medley from the nine-year running production “Sugar Babies” on the Palladium stage along with Mickey Rooney, and in 1989 she performed the tap dance routine from 42ND STREET (‘33) for the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park Grand Opening television special.
While recently watching these productions, I feared that I was going to witness a frail elderly woman, who was still convinced she “had it,” either embarrass or hurt herself. Thankfully, my future 64-year-old self is encouraged to say I was utterly wrong.
I watched each performance with unblinking eyes, in complete shock and jaw-dropping disbelief. Generally, mature performers are surrounded by dancers and ornamentation as distraction, while the older dancer waves their arms and kick their feet a time or two then get whisked off stage. Not so with Ann Miller. It’s true, a bevy of tap dancers joins her, but they are only for Broadway effect. She owns every performance, complete with her rapid-fire footwork and powerful Broadway belt (and when I state the term “belt,” I do not mean she sang well for her age, I mean “where did that voice come from Ethel Merman belt”). Miller claimed she never had to practice vocalizing, that her power came naturally. I suppose being used to many stars that were dubbed, I never questioned whether Miller’s voice was actually being used during her performances. I was too busy dissecting her dazzling costumes, lavish sets and trying to figure out how she could possibly execute gun-machine taps and appear as if her feet did not leave the ground.
Houston-born Johnnie Lucille Collier (her father anticipated a boy) aka Ann Miller was enrolled in dance school from the age of six. And, after confronting her philandering father who was caught red-handed with a nude woman in his bed, Miller and her mother of Cherokee descent, Clara, moved to California.
The naturally adept Miller eventually won a contest where she appeared for two weeks at the Orpheum Theatre. At 13 years old while performing at a supper club, Miller was discovered by talent scout Benny Rubin and comedienne Lucille Ball, who suggested she test with RKO. Required to prove her age, Miller enlisted her father, a criminal lawyer whose clients included Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (yes, that Bonnie and Clyde), to provide a false birth certificate stating she was 18 years old. As she began quite young in films, her mother Clara was her constant companion and protector, a memory that Miller would speak fondly of. The two remained close until Clara’s passing. Miller worked for multiple studios including RKO, Columbia and MGM, toured with major Broadway productions and had numerous television appearances.
Her debut was an uncredited role in ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (‘34). She performed on Broadway at age 16, and after a two-year stint she returned to Hollywood. She mainly appeared in B films until she auditioned for MGM’s EASTER PARADE (‘48), where she performed the entertaining number “Shaking the Blues Away.” In an interview with Robert Osborne, Miller admits to performing the number in a brace, due to her former husband’s physical abuse where in a drunken rage, he threw her down a flight of stairs breaking her back. Miller, who was nine months pregnant at the time, gave birth to her daughter, who tragically survived for only a few days.
A believer in the metaphysical, Miller wrote a book, Tapping Into the Force, about what she concluded were her psychic gifts. She would recall during the opening night of “Sugar Babies” in New York while standing alongside Rooney: “In the middle of the number, I felt this force hit me! It almost knocked the breath out of me. All of a sudden I started singing like I’d never sung before!” When returning backstage, her earring, which was securely fastened, fell from her ear landing near a piece of scenery with the letters “J-U-D.” Miller stated, “This inner voice I have said…Ann it’s me, Judy!” In explaining her supernatural experience to Rooney, Miller revealed to Rooney, “Judy was on the stage with us tonight,” to which Rooney replied…“I know it.”
Big hair jokes aside, there really is something absolutely adorable about Miller that is hard to place your finger on. Beams of light still seemed to emanate from her face in her elder years. Not only was she the consummate professional, exuberant and entertaining with the mind of a steel trap, she was an essential keeper of the flame of all things Golden Age.
Her performances in KISS ME KATE (‘53), EASTER PARADE (‘48), LOVELY TO LOOK AT (‘52) and HIT THE DECK (‘55) were showstoppers, and those are only from her MGM years. Even her Stan Freberg directed Great American Soup commercial was one-minute and three-seconds of camp genius. If you are a musical fan and have not seen this commercial, stop reading now and look it up…don’t worry, I’ll wait. The way she rips her apron off to reveal her glittering costume as if she has been desperately awaiting this chance for her entire life, the overwhelming expression of sheer unadulterated rapture on her face, how she tosses her top hat with dynamic gusto, performing her signature twirls returning to the set of the kitchen— there is even a touch of Busby Berkeley for good measure. It simply could not be more gloriously MGM-musical perfect.
“It’s funny I never studied a lot of acting, I just thought acting was being me!”-Ann Miller
Usually, I have no issue detailing my favorite performances, however, with Miller I simply cannot. Each performance is consistently perfect and sure-footed with precise accuracy—it’s almost impossible to choose one over another. Although she was not a Hollywood leading lady, she was showbiz through and through. Miller did, however, state in a 1990 interview with Bob Thomas, “Sugar Babies gave me the stardom that my soul kind of yearned for.” If you watch her in interviews and her performances, you will find there is no line of delineation. Miller was a willing, fully assembled readymade pre-packaged star born for the spotlight. From her earliest performance to her last, one thing is resoundingly true—Ann Miller was not created for Tinseltown, Tinseltown was created for Ann Miller.
On this day in 1923, a screen legend was born…kickin’ up our heels in celebration of the lovely and talented Miss Ann Miller! (April 12, 1923 - January 22, 2004)
