With her hazel eyes, tight curls and exuberant singing and dancing, the feisty Gaynor stood out in films such as My blue sky (1950) with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey; at Irving Berlin There’s no business like show business (1954), opposite Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe, her eventual successor at 20th Century Fox; and in the Cole Porter MGM musical The girls (1957) with Gene Kelly.

Gaynor also starred in Everything is allowed (1956) with Bing Crosby and Donald O’Connor, The Joker is wild (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Happy birthday (1959) with David Niven and Patty Duke.

In 1957, Gaynor was involved in a fierce battle for the role of Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in Joshua Logan’s film. South Pacific Oceanthe highly anticipated adaptation of the sensational Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical.

“I was filming The Joker is wild with Frank Sinatra and got the call that I was going to audition for Oscar Hammerstein in the ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel South Pacific Ocean,” she told Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune in 2013. “I did ‘Honey Bun,’ I did ‘A Cockeyed Optimist.’ I did everything except stripping.

“Oscar’s way, all the way across the ballroom. Why? Don’t know. But then he walked over. … Do you know when you are doing good? You feel like, “Well, at least I didn’t make a fool of myself.” Oscar took my hand and said, “Thank you very much, Miss Gaynor. You were a beautiful sport.”

She then sang in the 1958 film “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and “Some Enchanted Evening,” and the exotic World War II musical became the third highest-grossing film ($17.5 million, or $147 million today) of the year. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Comedy or Musical).

Gaynor made her last notable film appearance in Stanley Donen’s Surprise package (1960), a musical comedy also starring Yul Brenner. When the Hollywood musical faded into obscurity, she withdrew from the film after just one more film, the one starring Kirk Douglas. For love or money (1963). She was in her early thirties.

“I quit movies because they left me,” she said in a 2012 interview for the TV Academy Foundation. “Marilyn Monroe was now the new Alice Faye/Betty Grable, doing the musicals at Fox. I wasn’t going to do that My fair ladyand I wasn’t going to (sing) ‘The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Screaming’ – I couldn’t do anything.

Together with husband/manager Jack Bean, she set her sights on Las Vegas. Dressed in glittering Mackie costumes and accompanied by a team of handsome male dancers, she began singing, dancing and telling jokes in Vegas in 1961, eventually acquiring a stake in the Flamingo Hotel.

After what the Catholic Church called a “lascivious” 13-minute performance of her act on the Sullivan show, she was introduced as “Hollywood’s Mitzi Gaynor!!!” — the Beatles asked for her autograph. (During rehearsals, they also asked if she could borrow her hairdryer.) They were all present for the show, which was broadcast from a hotel in Miami, seen by 70 million viewers; a week earlier, Sullivan had introduced the Fab Four to America for the first time.

In 1968, Gaynor reportedly earned $45,000 a week in Vegas. Also that year she starred in her first TV special, Mitzifor NBC.

Five years later, she headlined the first of her six annual specials for CBS, including Mitzi and a hundred boys; Mitzi… A tribute to the American housewife; Mitzi… Looking forward to spring; And Mitzi… What’s hot, what’s not.

Gaynor said she was regularly approached to star in a weekly variety show but declined. “Gene Kelly once said to me, ‘Just do event television,’” she said.

After all her years working in TV, she finally won an Emmy in 2008 for her PBS special Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The special years.

She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago on September 4, 1931. Her mother was a dancer and her father a cellist, and at age 8 she took her first dance class. An only child, she and her parents moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit and finally to LA when she was 11, to follow her dance teacher.

At age 13, then known as Mitzi Gerber, she convinced Edwin Lester, the impresario of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, that she was 16 and got a role in the musical Song without words.

She next danced during a comedy bit in a West Coast production of Jerome Kerns’ Robertastarring Tom Ewell. That led to appearances in touring productions of The fortune teller (gypsy lady on Broadway), Song of Norway (as Miss Anders, her first speaking role), Naughty Marietta opposite Susanna Foster and as Katie in 1949 The Great Waltz.

While inside The Great Waltzshe was spotted by a Fox producer, signed to a contract by studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and had her last name changed to Gaynor. In My blue sky, she stood out in several television commercial broadcasts in the film.

Fox was grooming her to be the next Grable, and in quick succession she starred in Jeanne Crain’s sorority story. Take care of my little girl (1951); Golden girl (1951), set amid the California Gold Rush; the comedy We are not married! (1952) with Monroe; Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952); Down between the sheltered palms (1953); I don’t care girl (1953); Three young Texans (1954); And The birds and the bees (1956), an RKO remake of The Lady Eve.

During a Danny Thomas TV special in 1966, Gaynor met costume designer Ray Aghayan, who showed her a series of sketches of outfits he had designed, and she was impressed. She wanted him for her next show, but he was busy with Judy Garland, so Aghayan suggested his partner Mackie. That marked the beginning of a long, fruitful collaboration.

Gaynor was often asked to perform at the Academy Awards, and she wowed the house with performances of ‘The Moon Is Blue’ (with host O’Connor) in 1954, ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ (she sang it before and again when the show was running low) in 1959 and “Georgy Girl” in 1967.

Gaynor said she dated Howard Hughes for about eight months and broke up with her when she was 19. She said he begged her to marry him, but “found out he had also asked 400 other girls to marry him,” she said. (He advised her to buy “some dirt” in Las Vegas; she did it for $25 an acre and sold it for “two million dollars,” she told Mo Rocca in October 2019 on CBS Sunday morning.)

In September 2022, she received a Legacy Award from the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

She was married to Bean, who started as a public relations executive at MCA, from 1954 until his death in 2006.