Mitzi Gaynor, who starred alongside Marilyn in There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), is now 80, and will perform in a one-woman show, Razzle Dazzle! My Life Behind the Sequins, at the Reagle Theatre, Greater Boston, on Sunday, April 22.
I have long admired Ms Gaynor’s respectful attitude towards Marilyn. One of Hollywood’s great song-and-dance stars, she admitted to MetroWest Daily News that she prefers the stage…
“I loved being a movie star, but I’m not sure I was all that good. The camera always got in my way. I was never as comfortable making a film as I am on television or on stage in front of a live audience.
I played Ethel Merman’s daughter in that picture and we became best friends…Marilyn Monroe played a hat-check girl in the picture, but she wasn’t around all the time. She was busy creating Marilyn Monroe. If you see that picture now, though, and really pay attention to it, you realize that Marilyn steals the whole damn picture.”
