Marilyn Miller (born Mary Ellen Reynolds; September 1, 1898 – April 7, 1936) was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and the combination of these talents endeared her to audiences. On stage, she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. She had a history of sinus infections, the last of which required hospitalization and caused a toxicity – treated by blood transfusions as antibiotics were still a few years away – that caused her death at age 37.
Early life Marilyn Miller was born in 1898 in Evansville, Indiana, the youngest daughter of Edwin D. Reynolds, a telephone lineman, and his first wife, the former Ada Lynn Thompson. The tiny, delicately featured blonde was only four years old when she debuted in the role of Mademoiselle Sugarlump at Lakeside Park in Dayton, Ohio, performing as a member of her family's vaudeville act, named The Columbian Trio. That act, which included her stepfather Oscar Caro Miller and her older sisters Ruth and Claire, was renamed the Five Columbians after she and her mother joined the routine. From their home base in Findlay, Ohio, the five toured the Midwest and Europe for ten years and managed to skirt the child labor authorities until Lee Shubert discovered Miller at the Lotus Club in London in 1914.
Career
Miller appeared in New York City for the Shuberts in the 1914 and 1915 editions of The Passing Show, a Broadway revue at the Winter Garden Theatre, as well as in The Show of Wonders (1916) and Fancy Free (1918). It was, however, Florenz Ziegfeld who made her a star after she performed in his Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 in Manhattan at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, with music by Irving Berlin. Sharing billing with Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and W. C. Fields, she brought the house down with her impersonation of Billie Burke, Ziegfeld's wife, in a number titled "Mine Was a Marriage of Convenience." Miller followed as a headliner in the Follies of 1919, dancing to Berlin's "Mandy" and reputedly became Ziegfeld's mistress, though this was never proven. She attained legendary status in the Ziegfeld production Sally (1920) with music by Jerome Kern, especially for her performance of Kern's "Look for the Silver Lining". The musical, about a dishwasher who joins the Follies and marries a millionaire, ran 570 performances at the New Amsterdam. In 1921, the still-obscure Dorothy Parker memorialized her performance in verse:
From the alley's gloom and chill / Up to fame danced Sally. / Which was nice for her, but still / Rough upon the alley. / How it must regret her wiles. / All her ways and glances. / Now the theatre owns her smiles, / Sallies, songs, and dances. ...
After a rift with Ziegfeld, Miller signed with rival producer Charles Dillingham and starred as Peter Pan in a 1924 Broadway revival, then as a circus queen in Sunny (1925), with music by Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. A box-office smash, it featured the classic "Who?" and made her the highest-paid star on Broadway. In 1928, after reuniting with Ziegfeld, she starred in his production of the successful George Gershwin musical Rosalie, then in Smiles (1930) with Fred Astaire, one of Ziegfeld's rare box-office failures. Miller's movie career was short-lived and less successful than her stage career. She made only three films: adaptations of Sally (1929), Sunny (1930), and Her Majesty, Love (1931), with W. C. Fields. Her last Broadway show, marking a major comeback, was the innovative 1933-1934 Irving Berlin/Moss Hart musical As Thousands Cheer, in which she appeared in the production number "Easter Parade". Miller's last professional outing was her appearance in As Thousands Cheer. In 1936, she quit the show after her boyfriend and future husband Chester O'Brien – a chorus dancer who served as the production's second assistant stage manager – was fired for allowing the Woolworth department store heir Jimmy Donahue to sneak onstage during a scene in which Miller was impersonating his cousin, the heiress Barbara Hutton. After her death, this incident gave Irving Berlin the inspiration for a film musical On the Avenue, for which he received a script credit in addition to writing the songs. At the time of her death, Miller was described as being in retirement.
Origin of stage name Miller's last name was adopted from her stepfather's surname, Oscar Caro Miller. In contrast, her first name was formed by combining her birth name, Mary, with her mother's middle name, Lynn. Initially calling herself Marilynn, she would drop one "n" at the urging of Florenz Ziegfeld.
In the late 1940s, Norma Jeane Baker (née Mortenson) changed her name to Marilyn Monroe at the urging of Ben Lyon, a one-time actor turned casting director at 20th Century Fox, who said she reminded him of Miller – he had played Miller's love interest in Her Majesty, Love. Monroe was named Marilyn Miller when she married the playwright Arthur Miller in 1956.
Personal life
Engagements and marriages
Miller was married to:
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