Ann Miller

Ann Miller, born Johnnie Lucille Collier on April 12, 1923, at St. Joseph's Infirmary in Houston, Texas, was an American actress and dancer whose career spanned Hollywood's golden age of musicals and the Broadway stage. She was the only child of Clara Emma Collier and John Alfred Collier, a criminal lawyer whose clients included the Barrow gang, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson. Her maternal grandmother was of Cherokee descent. Miller adopted her stage name early in her career and used it throughout her professional life. She died on January 22, 2004.

Enrolled in dance classes at age five to help strengthen her legs following a bout of rickets, Miller quickly developed into what was considered a child prodigy. After her parents divorced when she was nine, she and her mother relocated to Los Angeles, where her mother struggled to find work due to deafness. Because Miller appeared considerably older than her actual age, she began performing as a dancer in nightclubs to support them both. At thirteen, she was hired as a showgirl at the Bal Tabarin, where she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout Benny Rubin, leading to a contract with RKO Pictures. RKO, like the nightclub, believed Miller to be eighteen; when the studio later learned her true age, her father supplied a falsified birth certificate.

Her first significant film role came in 1937 as Ginger Rogers' dancing partner in Gregory La Cava's Stage Door. The following year brought supporting parts in several RKO productions, including Room Service alongside the Marx Brothers and Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You, in which she played the quirky Essie Carmichael. In 1939, Miller made her Broadway debut in George White's Scandals, a credit that would remain part of her stage record. She departed RKO in 1940 after completing Too Many Girls, then made two films for Republic before signing with Columbia Pictures in 1941, where she starred in eleven musicals through 1945.

After leaving Columbia and recovering from an injury, Miller joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a contract player. Her MGM debut came in Easter Parade (1948), alongside Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, and she went on to appear in a succession of studio musicals including On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953). During her MGM tenure she typically appeared as the secondary female lead. Her final MGM film, the non-musical comedy The Great American Pastime (1956), was a commercial failure. Her final film role of any kind came in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001). In 1960, Miller received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and The Daily Telegraph later named her among the greatest actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

As the Hollywood studio system declined in the late 1950s, Miller shifted her focus to theater and television. In May 1969, she joined the Broadway production of Mame, taking over the title role and performing a tap number created specifically for her; she remained with the show until it closed in January 1970. A decade later, in 1979, she returned to Broadway in the revue Sugar Babies alongside fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney. The production earned Miller both a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, both in 1980. After the Broadway run concluded, she and Rooney toured the country extensively with the show. Miller's Broadway career extended from 1939 through 1982.

Beyond her stage and screen work, Miller published two books: an autobiography titled Miller's High Life in 1972, and Tapping into the Force in 1990, which addressed her experiences in the psychic world. In 1983, she received the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. On May 1, 1989, at the age of sixty-six, she sang and tap-danced to "42nd Street" at the opening of Disney MGM Studios, a performance that marked her final live dance appearance. Miller was originally from Chireno, Texas.