She was a smash hit in the Broadway production of 'Mame' in 1969 and 1970 and she appeared in one of the most iconic television commercials ever made, for Great American Soup in which she tap-danced on a monster soup tin surrounded by a dancing girls and an orchestra and which ends with the line, "Why must you make such a big production out of everything?".
Penelope Ann Miller and Husband Separate After 12 Years By & by Natalie Finn | Tue., Mar. Studio publicity claimed she could do 500 taps per minute. In 'Reveille with Beverly in 1943, she co-starred with Frank Sinatra, together with Duke Ellington and Count Basie and then with Louis Armstrong and Jo Stafford in 'Jam Session' the following year. 'Eve Knew Her Apples' in 1945 was a musical remake of 'It Happened One Night' in which Ann sang four numbers.
She was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
View the profiles of people named Ann Miller. In 1936, still incredibly, aged just 13, (and still maintaining she was 18), Ann signed a contract with the studio.Her first film with RKO was as herself in 'New Faces of 1937' and she stayed with the studio for 4 years, playing mainly dancing roles in such films as 'The Life of the Party' and 'Stage Door', both in 1937 and 'You Can't Take It with You' and 'Room Service' in 1938.Ann had a lifelong passion for the occult and believed she was the reincarnation of the Egyptian Queen Hathshepsut, which, she claimed, caused her marriages to fail.Ann Miller died on January 22, 2004 from cancer. Even at that young age, she had to support her mother, who was hearing-impaired and unable to hold a job. Ann was flying high and she went on to do 'On the Town' in 1949, with Sinatra and Gene Kelly, and 'Kiss Me Kate' in 1953 with Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel, each time playing important second feminine leads, but never the main feminine role. Join Facebook to connect with Ann Miller and others you may know. Either way, the experimental drug cures Anna and she arrives to the final Aurora's destination at Lake Baikal, together with what's left of the Aurora crew. Her career was put back on track by MGM who recruited her as a speciality dancer for 'The Kissing Bandit' in 1948.
It was a fortuitous move for Ann because she was seen there by Lucille Ball who recommended her to her studio, RKO. Later in the year she took another step up the ladder and left RKO to join Columbia.Her first movie for her new studio was 'Easter Parade' in 1948, as replacement for Cyd Charisse, who had broken her leg. The director, George Abbott, was impressed with the young dancer and invited her to work on the film version of Rodgers and Hart's 'Too Many Girls' in 1940', with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Kevin Winter/Getty Images.
Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress who starred in more than 40 Hollywood films during her career including 'Easter Parade' in 1948, with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland and 'On The Town' in 1949 with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.
The show will be on an episode of Snapped on Oxygen. Cohn was not a man to cross and he sued Ann for breach of contract and won a settlement of $150,000.
Tweet. She performed a romantic dance with Fred Astaire and a fast solo tap number called "Shakin' the Blues Away." Even then she would not slow down and in 1998 she appeared in a successful revival of Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies' at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. Depending on the player's actions, Artyom either survives by receiving a complete blood transfusion from the members of the crew (the good ending), or succumbs to radiation poisoning, if there are not enough survivors to donate the necessary amount of blood (the bad ending). The film, which co-starred Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson was forgettable, but her dancing was not and it earned Ann a contract with MGM, at that time the pre-eminent studio for quality musicals.She was renowned for her slim figure and long dancer's legs and for the speed of her tap dancing. Ann's marriage ended in divorce after 2 years but Cohn would not take her back. This marriage also ended in divorce within a year. Ann Miller Kontz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the arsenic poisoning death of her first husband, Eric Miller in Raleigh NC in November 2005. In the mid 1940's she is reputed to have had an affair with the already married head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer which ended when she refused to marry him.When she was three she began dancing lessons to strengthen and straighten her legs after an attack of rickets.
The film was a great success and it was the start of the big time for Ann. Her parents split up when Ann was nine and she and her mother moved to California.Ann continued to take dancing lessons and began dancing professionally at the age of 11, in 1934, when she appeared as an extra in the movie 'Anne of Green Gables'. She became known as a brilliant dancer, a child prodigy, whose early inspiration was Eleanor Powell, "the fastest tap dancer in the world." Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier on April 12, 1923 in Chireno, Texas.