Mitzi Mayfair

Mitzi Mayfair, born Juanita Emylyn Pique on June 6, 1914, in Fulton, Kentucky, was an American dancer, stage actress, and film actress who performed on Broadway between 1931 and 1936. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and began performing professionally at age 11 in a "Kids Act," despite being underage. Vaudevillian Gus Edwards discovered her during this period and took her on tour, though child labor authorities removed her from the stage at one stop along the way.

Mayfair continued working in vaudeville before establishing herself on Broadway. Her verified stage credits include the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931, the revue Calling All Stars in 1934, the musical Take a Chance, and the revue The Show Is On. She also joined the cast of At Home Abroad as a replacement when Eleanor Powell, who had likewise been discovered by Gus Edwards, departed the production. In a 1936 interview with the Harvard Crimson, Mayfair reflected on her career by saying she considered herself a natural dancer.

The stage name Mayfair came about under disputed circumstances. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the manager of the Main Street Theater in Kansas City changed her name without her knowledge, and she initially believed she had been replaced when she first saw the unfamiliar name on the marquee. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle offered a different account, reporting that Gus Edwards had simply forgotten her name and invented a new one.

Her film work included Paramount on Parade in 1930, a cameo in Stage Door Canteen in 1943, and a number of short films. During World War II, Mayfair participated in a USO tour of Europe and North Africa alongside Kay Francis, Carole Landis, and Martha Raye, among others. All four performers played themselves in the 1944 film Four Jills in a Jeep, a recreation of that tour. Dancer Irene Castle had considered Mayfair as a candidate to portray her in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, but ultimately determined she was not a sufficiently prominent star; the role went to Ginger Rogers, who appeared opposite the already-cast Fred Astaire.

Mayfair married three times. Her first husband was Albert F. Hoffman, an heir to a beverage-making fortune; they wed on March 12, 1938, at the home of Hoffman's brother in South Orange, New Jersey, and divorced in 1943. On April 7, 1944, she married Charles Henderson, described as associate head of the music department at 20th Century-Fox Studio. On June 28, 1963, she married Fred S. Cook of Kitsap County, Washington. Mayfair died in Pima, Arizona, in May 1976 at the age of 61.