Ann Miller 1923-2004 Pt 1

TCM original production Private Screenings with Robert Osborne

[@RamonRodriguez-hq7vn]

What I find amazing about Ann, along with all her amazing talents. She survived into the 21st century. God bless her.

[@marybarratt2649]

She was fantastic, my favourite of all the wonderful talented dancers of the era. Loved her.

[@mayaa5048]

Ann Miller was a very unique talent and beauty. ♥️

[@icecol22]

I recorded this interview on VHS when it aired !!! I've been looking for this interview for years.She's one of my favorite actresses.She's beautiful sharp mind,witty and she was beautiful!!!! Very engaging!!! Wonderful stories too.Thank you!!!! This is huge for me 💛💛💛💛

[@stephenriggs8177]

Loved her in "Can't Take It With You" and "On the Town"! Heck of a pinup, too. 😏

[@jamesfox2579]

The One and ONLY -- Ann Miller!💕

[@bobbypaluga4346]

To have such confidence at 14 is really amazing

[@stephencarpenteri2223]

What a sweetheart. The last of a generation of real performers.

[@TrangPakbaby]

My birthday twin! Love ya Annie! Hope ur tapping away in heaven with ur baby girl ❤️

[@XjtBA]

She was terrific in the movie Stage Door. She was just 14 years old! Fabulous movie with screen legends!

[@randysills4418]

I had forgotten she was in Stage Door... ❤

[@t4texastom587]

R. I. P. ANN🇨🇱 MILLER HAPPY HEAVENLY 100th BIRTHDAY to the prettiest, sweetest, dancing-est, dark-haired beauty that deep East Texas ever produced. Also R.I.P. Mary Miller d.Nov.12, 1946 age 3hrs.

[@stephenadamsmusicalinterpr4203]

I loved Ann Miller.

[@arelyflores1986]

Thank you so much! I've been looking for this for ages! I listen to the podcast but I really wanted to see the actual interview. Thanks!

[@gpomeroy]

you welcome , having a problem loading Pt 3 & 4 , KZbin sent me an copyright warning so far so good>

[@arelyflores1986]

@@gpomeroy Oh man! Hopefully you can get them uploaded but I'm loving the parts that are up already. Thanks again.

[@rmm7068]

@@gpomeroy part 2 is still missing

[@williamf4544]

Amazing find i thought i had seen all of Anne Millers stuff - thank you so much

[@Marsha_Ann]

i first saw Ann Miller in the film "On The Town" with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra and I thought she was so pretty.

[@BillK-c2e]

She was nice and kind to fans she didn't know. I was very saddened by her passing. She had a dreary personal life with disappointing marriages and the loss of her baby.

[@MareShoop]

I miss Robert Osborn 😢

[@randysills4418]

It's so nice that Ginger Rodgers and Ann Miller were friends all through the years. Ginger would have been thirteen years older than Ann.

[@williamf4544]

Anne always looked like she was having the time of her life - never looked like she was just doing a job - she was stunning but had a kind of unique look about her - she says she has Indian blood in her that might explain it

[@MTknitter22]

Annie always says in interviews how nice people were to HER - Annie was nice to all so no wonder !!

[@waynemacpherson3623]

I would loved to have had "tea" with Ann Miller and we could have talked about Hepburn and Capra and all the others she worked with. What a delight! I bet she could really "pour the tea" graciously.

[@maya8443]

Whom ever who doesn't know lady Miller, doesn't know that she was a legend she worked with the best of the best like Fred Asteire, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly Hermes Pan, ginger, Lucille, Katherine Hepburn, the marxx brothers, Frank Sinatra, and et als. That was Ann Miller.

[@audreydaleski1067]

I always tried to count her taps per minute

[@edwardalexander9486]

Of course - the landlady in Mulholland Drive. Been driving me mashup-crazy this unknown-to-a-modern-audience person! Genius-level stuff.

[@ExpatBear-58]

Ann was amazingly talented and prettier out of her Hollywood makeup.

[@thebabaa5001]

Where is part 2 ?

[@deesnyder3119]

Like it

[@esmeephillips5888]

Ann says she left Radio for Broadway bc she could not get a raise after scoring in 'Stage Door' and 'You Can't Take It With You'. But there is another version. Abe Lastfogel of the William Morris agency also repped Eleanor Powell, one of its biggest assets, who was pulling in thousands a week at MGM when Ann was on $150. The agency sent Ann a letter warning her that she would be dropped if she went on imitating Powell. Ann's three years with George White certainly improved her standing by showing she was not only a fast tapper. Yet when she returned, to Columbia, it was to be cast in a long string of cheap musical flagwavers, often down the cast. No longer did she get directors of Capra's or La Cava's caliber. I doubt Harry Cohn ever paid her three grand a week. The likes of Grable, Hutton and Miranda filled the void left by Ginger's abandonment of dancing and Powell's retirement. Ann was seen as a second-best choice. This undervaluation persisted at Metro. Perhaps after all her recusal had been a misstep.

[@carrotjuse]

Why she wasn't a major star is beyond me.

[@terrysmith8749]

Because she came across as a snob to a lot of people. In many circles she wasn't well liked.

[@terrysmith8749]

Ann Miller didn't have that something extra. That personality that grabs the audience. She without a doubt could dance, but, she wasn't charming, and overly likeable. Eleanor Powell who was the queen of tap in the 30's was very likeable, and the American audiences loved to watch her dance. She added some athleticism to her routines and she was fun to watch. Miss Miller was a marvelous dancer, but didn't have the personally and charm to win over the American audience.

[@googlefan7409]

@@terrysmith8749 I think you are very wrong, if you had watched any of her documentaries, she was said to be very likebale indeed. The only reason why she did not get the big roles were the old white directors and other men in charge wanted a bit of her but never could get it. They made sure she stayed as the co-star

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@terrysmith8749 Ann said she tried to stay away from studio politics, but she could not help getting involved, especially after Mayer attempted suicide when she rejected him. She was a kid under her mom's thumb, worked hard, loved clothes and parties and knew nothing about the moguls' machinations. She suspected her agency, William Morris, did not push hard enough for her stardom b/c it also handled Eleanor Powell; as a result, Ann was constantly hired as box office insurance in other folks' pictures, instead of being built up as a personality. At Radio, Columbia and MGM she was valued as a dancer who could electrify a routine film for a few minutes; but she did not choreograph her dances and her gifts as a singer and comedienne were not developed. That said, Ann was well paid and was too preoccupied with her love life to insist on higher billing. By the time she began to object to being underused, Esther Williams had become Metro's musical queen- another performer with more inner steel- and then the genre ran out of steam. Miller could have diversified in the late 1950s like Cyd Charisse or Doris Day, but she was too tired or bored by the business. She admits in her memoirs that from her mid-20s she was looking for a rich guy to marry. You cannot imagine Ginger or Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis making that a priority. They fought like tigresses for recognition. Ann did her job, often brilliantly, then went off to a night club.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@terrysmith8749 You are mixing her up with Cyd Charisse, who played the 'I'm a ballerina' card too often. Ann was a down-to-earth hoofer who thought ballet pretentious and dull. She spoofed earnest young ballet students in 'You Can't Take It With You'.

[@SunsetBoulevard111]

Part 2??

[@esmeephillips5888]

As early as autumn 1937, Ann was being talked about in fan mags as Fred Astaire's next partner. Ginger was on strike, Fred was vainly trying to get a step out of Joan Fontaine and Ann- 14 pretending to be 18- had impressed as a tapper (in billowing silver pants) at the same studio, RKO, in 'New Faces of 1937'. It's on YT. In the event, studio politics and Fred's hangup about women who made him look small meant that he and Miller did not appear together until 'Easter Parade' in 1948, when they only danced together for one minute. Why MGM omitted to give them a tap or comedy duet- like 'Mr and Mrs Hoofer at Home' with Fred and Vera-Ellen- is a mystery, and a missed opportunity.

[@tracymcmillan1466]

When was this interview?

[@gpomeroy]

not sure 90's?

[@gpomeroy]

It was in the 90's , still working on getting the Pt 3 & 4 loaded

[@slc2466]

Love Annie- check out my tribute here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipbQc6GEl8mWfrM

[@bobdoubter2977]

Ginger Rogers....wow. But Ann should have been a bigger star.

[@terrysmith8749]

Bigger than Ginger, never in her best day. Ms Miller comes across kinda snobby. I will give her credit for her dancing ability. She was very good. But, she tells stories about other celebrities that are incorrect. She acts like a see all, know all. She told stories about JUDY that were totally screwed up. Miss Miller would embellish stories about famous celebrities just so people would think that she was running in their circles. Fact not Fiction.

[@terrysmith8749]

Did Ann Miller ever get her name above the title? She was a marvelous dancer, i'll give her that much. But, she always came across to me as a bit of a snob.

[@terrysmith8749]

Ginger was also a great dancer. Plus an Academy award winning actress.

[@esmeephillips5888]

@@terrysmith8749 No, Ann never had a movie designed to showcase her, although she was an accomplished comedienne and singer- not quite in Ginger's class as a triple threat but more than worth a buildup. For almost 20 years Ann gave other folks' vehicles a push. Her neglect was a grievous oversight by a system that generally maxed out talent; but Ann was very young, and later was preoccupied with her tumultuous private life instead of pushing for recognition. She was a hard worker in rehearsal and on the set, but lacked the 24/7 dedication and insight into her abilities that drove Davis, Crawford, Stanwyck, Hepburn. That was true of most of the leading women hoofers. Their work schedules left them maybe too tired and blinkered to be more than cabs for hire. Eleanor Powell is the exception, but she was a perfectionist who only made one picture a year.

[@theaterdreamer]

@@terrysmith8749 you keep saying she came across as snobby. I’ve never once felt that.

[@terrysmith8749]

I have seen three interviews with Ann Miller. In two of those interviews the subject was Judy. In those interviews Miss Miller told some stories about Judy that were not true. POSITIVELY AND ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. ONE INVOLVED M.G.M., JUDY AND DEANNA DURBIN. SHE EXPLAINED HOW M.G.M. GOT JUDY AND HOW REPUBLIC (I think) GOT DEANNA. AND HER STORY WASN'T EVEN CLOSE TO HOW IT REALLY HAPPENED. SHE STARTED HER STORY BY SAYING, LORNA YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THIS. WHICH LORNA DIDN'T, BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

[@MTknitter22]

We were not there so we do not know

[@esmeephillips5888]

Universal got Deanna, and what a coup that was. In the late 30s she was keeping it afloat.

[@esmeephillips5888]

Ann began so young that she outlived most of her contemporaries. They were not around to dispute the yarns she told on talk shows. Hollywood is the fabulist's natural habitat, and Ann might have been repeating garbled legends rather than inventing maliciously. She was a sunny, somewhat gullible gal who lived for the moment; she had no regrets about her past- no Norma Desmond, she- and had a flourishing second career to occupy her, so any misspeaking is unlikely to have been deliberate.