I don’t believe we have yet said goodbye to Mitzi Gaynor. She died last week, at 93. She was mourned in the usual modern fashion — some amusing clips of her energetic dancing posted online, some YAS QUEEN, a note added to the lengthening list for the In Memoriam reel at next year’s Oscars.
I will remember Mitzi mainly for her effect on Eddie Fisher.
Eddie was a sportswriter in Columbus, already past his prime by the time I arrived in 1979. I don’t know if he even had a beat, but he looked like the kind of guy who’d cover horse racing. A bachelor. He was the kind of guy who always had a wet cigar stub clamped in his jaw, smelled like a wet cigar stub and had a tendency to look at women like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. Eyes bugging out on springs, tongue rolling out like a carpet runner — you know the type.
He’s gone now, and his obit informs me that he spent a stretch as the paper’s entertainment editor. Even though he toiled in Sports, he hung on to one assignment from his earlier job, and that was writing advances for at least some of the Kenley Players summer-stock productions, and certainly the ones starring Mitzi Gaynor. I think he considered her a friend of sorts.
He loved, loved, loved Mitzi, and rarely missed the chance to drop her birth name into his slavering stories: Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber. I once walked past his desk when he was interviewing her. I think he was actually drooling.
Admittedly, Mitzi was quite something, an energetic hoofer with the legs to match. Her summer show wasn’t a play or musical, just “The Mitzi Gaynor Show,” with hoofing and jokes and false eyelashes and a crowd of backup dancers in tight pants and top hats. If you like that kind of thing, it was your kind of thing.
Mitzi had an active Instagram account, where she or her reps would post old clips of her dancing in some short number with a rhinestone-studded fringe hem. I guess that means she was young at heart. I could certainly watch her sing “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” on repeat for about an hour.
In the midst of looking up stuff, I found a short piece about John Kenley, founder of the players, with this startling revelation:
Born to Slovakian saloon keepers in 1906, John was born in Denver Colorado, after the family had fled increasing prohibition laws on the East Coast. Born intersex, John (who occasionally went by “Joan” but utilized male pronouns when at work) entered show business when the family moved to Cleveland Ohio, where he worked as a female impersonator, acrobat, dancer, and audience plant at comedy show before he made the move to New York City.
I had no idea.
So farewell, Mitzi. You were a true entertainer.
Jeff Gill said on October 23, 2024 at 5:57 pm
Well. God bless Mitzi Gaynor & Ann Miller, whom my mother adores, but thank you Nancy for the introduction to John Kenley. That is well worth anyone’s time to read, and a personality I’d never heard of though I knew generally of the Kenley Players.
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Sherri said on October 23, 2024 at 6:50 pm
The anti-trans bills prohibiting gender affirming care in the name of protecting children give the game away when they provide a carve out for allowing surgery on intersex infants, to “choose” a gender for them without their consent.
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Sherri said on October 23, 2024 at 7:03 pm
My day began with a phone call from the company my credit union has outsourced credit card fraud to, letting me know there was fraudulent activity on my card. I didn’t answer the call, because I didn’t recognize the company, and didn’t know my credit union had outsource this, but I looked them up, and the company was real, and I checked my credit card, and yes, there were charges I hadn’t made. So I called them back, and the card is locked, and a new card is coming.
Then I read the news, and see a headline that there’s a recall of my antidepressant. I can’t just stop taking my antidepressant, withdrawal is a bitch. Fortunately, I read the story, check my bottle, and it’s a different manufacturer and dose. So my antidepressant hopefully does not contain a toxic ingredient. At least not that toxic ingredient.
Then I realize that if Donald Trump wins, Thomas and Alito will probably retire and he’ll get to replace them, which will have given him 5 SCOTUS appointments. Nightmare.
So I went to the gym and did heavy bench presses. They went up really well!
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Deborah said on October 23, 2024 at 7:28 pm
Good link, Nancy, to the John Kenley piece.
I listened through Audible to the Anne Patchett book, Tom Lake, about regional theater, which I very much enjoyed. The Audible production of the book was narrated by Meryl Streep which made it fantastic.
A lovely day in Chicago, good to be home after a fun trip. I did lots of laundry today but got out in the coolish weather too.
I’m trying not to be stressed out by the upcoming critically important event. Hard to believe after everything new we’re hearing about how despicable Trump is that it’s still so close. How can that be?
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