Kathryn Grayson, RIP

[dirac]

Kathryn Grayson, MGM's go-to musical ingenue in the fading days of the movie musical golden age, has died at age 88.

Signed to MGM by Louis B. Mayer as a teenager, her first film was opposite Mickey Rooney in 1941's "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary." After making a splash in the Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra musical "Anchors Aweigh," she graduated to leading status, headlining three musicals with Keel and two with Mario Lanza. Grayson's popularity, however, declined alongside that of the MGM musical, and she spent the latter half of her career realizing her early operatic dreams, touring with Keel (including gigs in Las Vegas) and starring in one-woman shows.

Very sorry to hear this. I can't claim that she was ever a favorite of mine and indeed I have an active dislike for a couple of her performances, but she was generally pleasing to watch and a very pretty lady. Rest in peace and thanks for the memories. Well, some of them.

[dirac]

Here is a nice appreciation by Linda Holmes for NPR, with film clips.

That's just not a common sequence in those particular movies. Almost like the ballet sequences Kelly liked to do (though less tinged with pretentiousness), it represents one of the ways MGM allowed a little bit of genre-mixing from time to time.

But in that movie, even her love songs, like "All Of A Sudden, My Heart Sings" -- an unassuming little song that's literally just a scale up and then back down -- show off her shimmery voice.

[miliosr]

Sad to read this.

I love the three musicals she made with Howard Keel -- Show Boat (1951), Lovely To Look At (1952) and Kiss Me Kate (1953). (Lovely To Look At being my particular favorite.)

[dirac]

I too like Lovely to Look At (and Howard Keel), which isn't revived as frequently as the other two. It's another version of "Roberta" and has several songs not included in the Dunne-Scott-Astaire-Rogers version. Grayson was a good Magnolia although I'm sorry to say I really, really hated her in Kiss Me Kate.

A lot of Grayson's musicals were on the good-but-not-great side and she worked more with the producer Joe Pasternak rather than Arthur Freed (who did produce Show Boat). Pasternak's pictures were usually very popular even though in general they are not the musicals for which MGM is remembered. I have a soft spot for the early Mario Lanza movies Pasternak produced with Grayson. I remember her saying that Lanza had really bad breath.

[dirac]

NYT obituary.

Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick was born on Feb. 9, 1922, in Winston-Salem, N.C., the third child of Charles and Lillian Hedrick. The family moved to Kirkwood, Mo., near St. Louis, where she studied voice and aspired to an opera career. Her parents moved to California, and when she was 15 she was signed by Red Seal, the classical arm of RCA Victor Records. Seen and heard by MGM executives, she was persuaded to abandon her opera ambitions and do her singing in the movies instead.

She made her film debut in the title role in "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary" (1941), opposite Mickey Rooney. This, the seventh full-length feature in the series about wholesome prewar teenagers, gave the 19-year-old Ms. Grayson the opportunity to sing Johann Strauss's "Voices of Spring" and the mad-scene aria from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" onscreen.

(The obit does say that Grayson "introduced moviegoers" to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" but I think Irene Dunne did the honors in the 1935 Roberta, although the song might have been performed in movies before that.)

[miliosr]

I too like Lovely to Look At (and Howard Keel), which isn't revived as frequently as the other two. It's another version of "Roberta" and has several songs not included in the Dunne-Scott-Astaire-Rogers version.

Lovely To Look At isn't top drawer M-G-M but it has some of my favorite ever M-G-M musical sequences in it -- Ann Miller tap dancing with a group of chorus boys in "I'll Be Hard To Handle," Marge and Gower Champion dancing beautifully to an orchestral version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," and Grayson singing an emotional "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" (she could sound pinched at times but here her tone is warm and lovely.)

A lot of Grayson's musicals were on the good-but-not-great side and she worked more with the producer Joe Pasternak rather than Arthur Freed (who did produce Show Boat). Pasternak's pictures were usually very popular even though in general they are not the musicals for which MGM is remembered.

The Paternak pictures have dated badly in comparison to the Freed pictures (or Jack Cummings pictures like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.) The Pasternak pictures sort of fall between the cracks -- they're too camp to be taken seriously by film buffs (like the Freed pictures are) but they're not camp enough to be enjoyed by camp enthusiasts (like the Alice Faye-Betty Grable-Carmen Miranda pictures at Fox are.)

[dirac]

Hmmm. We might be casting the “camp” net a bit wide. I’m not sure I would call the Lanza-Grayson movies camp the way “Moon Over Miami” and such are camp. (And some of those Alice Faye musicals can be enjoyed on their own merits, although the presence of Carmen Miranda in any picture may well automatically qualify it as camp and the Busby Berkeley numbers in The Gang's All Here are in a category of their own.)

[miliosr]

I'm sorry to say I really, really hated her in Kiss Me Kate.

I watched Kiss Me Kate today.

I do think M-G-M miscast Kathryn Grayson as Lilly. She was wrong for the part tempermentally and vocally. (Howard Keel is a lot of fun as Fred, though.)

Still, I think that Ann Miller and her three suitors (Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse and Bobby Van) steal the picture from the two leads. The best bits in the movie are the dance sequences -- "Too Darn Hot," "Why Can't You Behave?," "Tom, Dick and Harry," "Always True To You," and "From This Moment On". I especially like the "Tom, Dick and Harry" number, not least because it allows the viewer to compare a great dancer (Rall) to a very good one (Fosse) and a good one (Van). (Van was really more of a hoofer than a dancer.) It's a pity that Miller, Rall, Fosse and Van weren't able to parlay their individual successes in Kiss Me Kate into many more musical roles but, alas, their personal high watermarks as musical performers came just as the Hollywood movie musical entered its decline.

The 3-D gimmick in Kiss Me Kate is very dated and distracting now and the undercurrent of homophobia in the script is wince-inducing.

[Quiggin]

I'm sorry to say I really, really hated her in Kiss Me Kate.

Though the film of Kiss Me Kate is a delight -- especially seeing James Whitmore, who would forever ever after play real gangsters, in light mode -- I think this clip of the two original leads is an especially good example of the myriad little things that are lost in the move from Broadway to Hollywood. "Stage to Screen" in a nutshell:

Patricia Morison & Howard Drake in KMK

(There's also a link to Julie Wilson doing "Always True to You (Darling) in My Fashion")

The 3-D gimmick in Kiss Me Kate is very dated and distracting

I liked the effect for being able to look deeply into the stage sets and seeing little things I would normally miss, it was sort of uncanny. It might be fun to see Scorsese work in the "third dimension" now that it's fashionable again.

[dirac]

Still, I think that Ann Miller and her three suitors (Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse and Bobby Van) steal the picture from the two leads. The best bits in the movie are the dance sequences -- "Too Darn Hot," "Why Can't You Behave?," "Tom, Dick and Harry," "Always True To You," and "From This Moment On". I especially like the "Tom, Dick and Harry" number, not least because it allows the viewer to compare a great dancer (Rall) to a very good one (Fosse) and a good one (Van). (Van was really more of a hoofer than a dancer.)

The dancing is wonderful. I'm not Ann Miller's biggest fan but she's very good in Kiss Me Kate. Normally I find her dancing uninspired and rather mechanical, but maybe the strong dancers around her made for something of a challenge (or somebody used a cattle prod) and she's great. Keel got a lot of Alfred Drake's old roles and although I like Keel a lot it's too bad Drake was never imported to recreate some his stage parts. Out of respect for the recently departed I'll add nothing else to what I said above about Grayson.

The movie gets off to a great start and then gets bogged down with those ghastly cutesy gangsters and the guy from Texas (sorry, Quiggin, I find them unwatchable) and then picks up steam again for a fine finish. "From This Moment On" is a great number and it also contains a bit of dance history - the pairs come on in Hermes Pan's good but conventional choreography and then Carol Haney slithers on with Fosse, who was allowed to choreograph his own section, and suddenly the future is here.

It's a pity that Miller, Rall, Fosse and Van weren't able to parlay their individual successes in Kiss Me Kate into many more musical roles but, alas, their personal high watermarks as musical performers came just as the Hollywood movie musical entered its decline.

Especially Rall. Marvelous dancer.

Thanks for reviving the thread, miliosr.

[miliosr]

I'm not Ann Miller's biggest fan but she's very good in Kiss Me Kate. Normally I find her dancing uninspired and rather mechanical, but maybe the strong dancers around her made for something of a challenge (or somebody used a cattle prod) and she's great.

I'm a bigger fan of Miller's than you are, dirac, but I think there is something to what you wrote. Miller was basically a soloist in many of her movies (and a novelty soloist at that.) She rose and fell based on the choreographer she had at any given time and the situations she found herself in. But having to dance with a dancer of Tommy Rall's caliber really raised the level of her game. "Why Can't You Behave?," "Tom, Dick and Harry" and "From This Moment On" showed us an Ann Miller we hadn't seen before and I think a lot of that came from having to dance with Rall.

"From This Moment On" is a great number and it also contains a bit of dance history - the pairs come on in Hermes Pan's good but conventional choreography and then Carol Haney slithers on with Fosse, who was allowed to choreograph his own section, and suddenly the future is here.

I agree that Fosse's choreography does stand out in bold relief to Hermes Pan's more "meat and potatoes" choreography in "From this Moment On". But I also feel that Fosse's brief segment shows us the limits of the Fosse technique. All those closed in positions are, ultimately, too limited expressively when compared to the "open" dancing (which is very clearly ballet-derived) of Tommy Rall in the same number.

It's a pity that Miller, Rall, Fosse and Van weren't able to parlay their individual successes in Kiss Me Kate into many more musical roles but, alas, their personal high watermarks as musical performers came just as the Hollywood movie musical entered its decline.

Especially Rall. Marvelous dancer.

As I wrote, you really can make comparisons when you see Rall, Van and Fosse side-by-side in the "Tom, Dick and Harry" number. Rall very clearly leaves the other two in his dust (Van more so than Fosse.) Whoever Rall's ballet teacher(s) was/were did a bang-up job.

[bart]

This is fascinating. Thanks, quiggan, dirac and miliosr.

I don't seem to be able to find a clip of the Tom, Dick and Harry sequence on YouTube. miliosr's description certainly makes me want to see this film again -- and to pay more attention .

[dirac]

That's very nice of you to say, bart, thanks.

I agree that Fosse's choreography does stand out in bold relief to Hermes Pan's more "meat and potatoes" choreography in "From this Moment On". But I also feel that Fosse's brief segment shows us the limits of the Fosse technique. All those closed in positions are, ultimately, too limited expressively when compared to the "open" dancing (which is very clearly ballet-derived) of Tommy Rall in the same number.

In retrospect, maybe, but in the context of the film the choreography is so striking and Haney and Fosse display such a sexy cool that everything around them looks rather fusty. They stop the show. (I once saw the movie in a repertory theater and the man behind me said as Haney and Fosse danced, "Wow. Who are they?")

I guess since we've mentioned all the other dancers in the number, I might as well note that Bobby Van's partner is Jeanne Coyne, who was to marry Gene Kelly and die untimely, like Haney.

But having to dance with a dancer of Tommy Rall's caliber really raised the level of her game.

And she's very responsive to him as a partner. They're a fine pair.