From the Archives: Ann Miller, 81; Danced in Movies and on Stage

Ann Miller, the enduring actress and dancer famous for her long legs and tap-dancing speed, died Thursday morning in Los Angeles. She was 81. Miller succumbed to lung cancer after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last Friday following a fall in her Beverly Hills home, said her former publicist, Esme Chandlee.

Although she was unable to break through to the front ranks of movie stardom, Miller danced alongside legends Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire in a series of films for MGM in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, including “Easter Parade,” “On the Town” and “Kiss Me Kate.”

“She had the most incredible personality,” said Russ Tamblyn, who acted with Miller in “Hit the Deck” (1955). “It almost came across stronger in real life than on the screen. On screen she always played the second fiddle. In life she was the leading lady.”

Born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier in Chireno, Texas, Miller was enrolled by her mother in a tap-dancing school at age 5 to strengthen her legs after a case of rickets.

Her parents divorced when she was 10, and she moved with her mother to California, where she helped support the two of them by dancing in nightclubs. It was during this time that she took the stage name of Ann Miller.

Lucille Ball and comedian Benny Rubin saw Miller performing in San Francisco in 1937 and urged RKO Pictures to sign her to a contract. To get the deal, the 13-year-old Miller lied about her age, saying she was 18. This began a lifelong confusion about her true age. Although some reference books gave her birth year as 1919, in later years Miller claimed that she had been born in 1923.

Her movie career at RKO began with “New Faces of 1937” and a role as Ginger Rogers’ dance partner in the classic “Stage Door,” which also starred Katharine Hepburn. The next year, she had a role in Frank Capra’s “You Can’t Take It With You,” which won a best-picture Oscar.

Miller, who said she had once been clocked at 500 taps per minute, had supporting roles in musicals and comedies at RKO, Columbia and Republic until she signed with MGM in 1948.

Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, said “the quintessential Ann Miller number” is “Shaking the Blues Away,” in “Easter Parade,” the 1948 MGM musical starring Judy Garland and Astaire.

“It’s a great solo turn where she’s on the stage alone and she just uses the space wonderfully,” Kreuger said Thursday. “That number captures all the essence, I think, of Ann Miller -- the bravura tap dancing and her enormous energy and that joyous smile that was so engaging.”

Miller was a last-minute replacement in “Easter Parade” for Cyd Charisse, who had broken her ankle.

When film musicals’ popularity declined in the 1950s, Miller went to television and then the stage. In 1969, she took over the starring role in the Broadway musical “Mame.”

John Bowab, an associate producer of the production, had directed Miller in a Florida engagement of the show and suggested bringing her to New York.

“She brought an aura of happiness with her to the stage,” Bowab said Thursday. “The audience knew it would have a good time. She was funny, bright, glamorous, and she loved every minute of it.”

Bowab recalled that, when Miller suffered a minor injury during her Broadway run of “Mame,” she had to fill out a form that asked for her occupation. She wrote “star.” When it was suggested that this might not be appropriate for a medical form, she replaced “star” with “leading lady,” which remained on the form. “Nobody was going to say that she should just say ‘actress,’ ” Bowab said.

She gained new fame in 1972 when she danced on a giant soup can in a commercial for Great American Soups.

The stage role for which Miller was probably best known was in the vaudevillian “Sugar Babies,” for which she received a 1980 Tony Award nomination. She co-starred in the role with Mickey Rooney on Broadway and on tour.

“She could do it all,” Rooney said Thursday. “Nobody will ever tap dance like her again. She was a lot of fun to be with. It wasn’t like work.”

In 1998, Miller won rave reviews for her turn in Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

She sang “I’m Still Here,” a song about a show business survivor. Her solo “got a standing ovation in the middle of the show every night,” recalled Angelo Del Rossi, Paper Mill’s former executive producer.

“The audiences adored her,” Del Rossi said. “But she wasn’t someone with a star complex. She worked. She never slouched on rehearsals. She was very disciplined.”

Del Rossi also remembered going to dinner with Miller at 21 in New York, “and when we walked in, everyone in the restaurant stood up and clapped for her. She wasn’t the biggest star, but she was truly loved.”

Miller returned to movies in 2001 in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” playing Coco Lenoix, the eccentric manager of a Hollywood apartment complex.

“It’s like Ann Miller was my aunt,” Lynch said. “She lived in the present but carried this beautiful past. She was 100% hip, and we got along like Ike and Mike from the get-go.”

Robert Osborne, the on-air host for Turner Classic Movies, said, “One of the great things about Ann, in this era when even the biggest stars don’t dress well, is she always looked like a real star.” She was known for her impeccable appearance and jet-black hair.

Her romantic life was not as successful as her career. She was married three times, to millionaires Reese Milner in 1946, William Moss in 1958 and Arthur Cameron in 1961.

She divorced Milner and Moss and had the marriage to Cameron annulled. She bore a daughter by Milner, but the child died three hours after birth.

Miller remained close to her mother, whom she cared for until the older woman’s death in 1981. She never kept in touch with her father.

In later years, she lived in Beverly Hills and Sedona, Ariz., and wrote two memoirs, “Miller’s Highlife” in 1972 and “Tops in Taps” in 1981.

Miller’s tap shoes, which she named Moe and Joe, are on display in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

She had no known survivors.

Services are pending.

Times staff writers Susan King and Dennis McLellan contributed to this report.

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