Considered one of the last survivors of the “Golden Age of Hollywood”, actress Mitzi Gaynor died October 17, 2024 as a result of natural causes at the age of 93.
A “triple threat”, Gaynor was an actress, singer, and dancer who has shared a stage with Hollywood icons Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.
A veteran of the Hollywood musical, variety shows, and Las Vegas; Gaynor noted in a interview that she loved touring; adding that it was like visiting old friends.
Born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber on September 4, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois to a musician father and a dancer mother. She is from Hungarian ancestry. Gaynor began singing and dancing at a very young age. She made her stage debut in a dance recital at the age of seven. The family moved to Hollywood when a young Marlene was eleven years old and while still in her teens, a 17 year old Marlene signed a contract with 20th Century Fox and became Mitzi Gaynor.
Gaynor made her Hollywood screen debut in 1950 in “My Blue Heaven”.
Over the next dozen years, she appeare, d in several films including “Golden Girl”, “Bloodhounds of Broadway”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, “Anything Goes”, “The Joker is Wild”, “South Pacific”, and her final film in 1963 in “For Love or Money”. Haynor went on to appear in numerous variety shows, guest appearances, and in her own Las Vegas show.
Gaynor is a member of the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame.
Predeceased by her husband Jack Bean, the couple had no children.
Feature photo credit: Mitzi Gaynor, photographed by Bud Fraker, Photoplay January 1956