Marilyn Miller

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, delicate-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 "The Columbian Trio". That act, which included her stepfather Oscar Caro Miller and her older sisters Ruth and Claire, was soon 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 10 years and managed during that time 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 Ziegfeld's wife, Billie Burke, 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, a rare Ziegfeld box office failure.

Miller's movie career was short-lived and less successful than her stage career. She made only three films: adaptations of Sally (1929); and 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 appearance in As Thousands Cheer was her last professional outing. 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 she 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

Marilyn Miller's last name was adopted from the surname of her stepfather, Oscar Caro Miller, while 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.

Census records document very few dozen people named "Marilyn" in the United States in 1900; by the 1930s, following Miller's stardom, it was the 16th most common first name among American females.

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 would "become" Marilyn Miller herself when she married the playwright Arthur Miller in 1956.

Engagements and marriages

Miller was married to:

In 1930, Miller was briefly engaged to Michael Farmer, who later became a husband of Gloria Swanson. In 1932, she announced her intention to marry Don Alvarado, but the wedding did not take place.

Illnesses, alcoholism, and death

Miller had a long history of sinus infections, and her health was compromised by an increasing dependency on alcohol. According to reports shortly before her death, she entered a New York hospital in early March 1936 in order to recover from a nervous breakdown. Three weeks later, however, she developed a toxic condition and died from complications following surgery on her nasal passages at age 37 in New York City on the morning of April 7, 1936 and was given a funeral at Saint Bartholomew Church on Park Avenue which drew 2,500 people, including former mayor Jimmy Walker, Beatrice Lillie, and Billie Burke.

The procession led to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where Miller was buried alongside her first husband Frank Carter in a mausoleum she had constructed to house his remains.

Memorials

A statue of Miller, in the title role of Sunny, can still be seen atop the former I. Miller (no relation) Shoe Company Building at 1552 Broadway, also addressed as 167 West 46th Street, in Times Square, Manhattan. It is one of four sculpted by Alexander Stirling Calder between 1927 and 1929 for the building's facade, representing famous theatrical professionals of the time. In 2013, after years of neglect, the building and statues were restored.

One of the poems in Patti Smith's 1972 book Seventh Heaven is titled "Marilyn Miller".

Biographies (film and print)

In 1949, a sanitized biopic, appropriately titled Look for the Silver Lining, starred June Haver as Miller. She was also portrayed by Judy Garland in Till the Clouds Roll By, MGM's biopic of Jerome Kern. In 1978 the story of her tempestuous relationship with Ziegfeld was portrayed in the Emmy-winning made-for-TV biopic Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women, starring Pamela Peadin as Miller, Paul Shenar as Ziegfeld, and Walter Willison as Frank Carter. Rare film footage of Miller in the 1929 film version of Sally can also be seen in the 2004 PBS documentary series Broadway, the American Musical.

In the only published biography of Miller, The Other Marilyn (1985), author Warren G. Harris describes her as "Ziegfeld's most dazzling star" and the premier musical comedy star of the Jazz Age. He adds, "She had rivals who may have been better dancers, singers, actresses, or mimics, but no one individual could equal her when it came to combining all those talents."

Filmography

All three films survive in some form, but Sally, filmed entirely in two-color Technicolor, now exists only in black-and-white, except for one fragment – most of the "Wild Rose" musical number – that has survived from an original Technicolor print.