This Is Your Life: Ann Miller

Ann MILLER (1923-2004)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Ann Miller, dancer, singer and actress, was surprised by Michael Aspel at the Television City studios of CBS in Hollywood, having been led to believe she was there to take part in an interview.

Born Johnnie Lucille Collier in Houston, Texas, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother at the age of nine. Looking older than her real age, she found work as a dancer in nightclubs, earning money for herself and her mother, who was deaf. Adopting the stage name of Ann Miller, and lying about her age, she found work as a showgirl and was spotted by the Hollywood studio RKO, who offered her a contract in 1936 and cast her in Stage Door with Ginger Rogers, and in the Best Picture Oscar winner, Frank Capra's You Can't Take it With You.

In 1941 she signed with Columbia Pictures, starring in 11 B movie musicals, before finally hitting her mark with MGM, appearing in such hit musicals as Easter Parade, On the Town and Kiss Me Kate. She returned to the stage in 1979, astounding audiences in the Broadway musical Sugar Babies with Mickey Rooney.

"Oh Michael! Yes – this'll be fun!"

programme details...

Edition No: 865
Subject No: 853
Broadcast date: Wed 14 Apr 1993
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Thu 25 Feb 1993
Venue: CBS Studios, Hollywood
Series: 33
Edition: 29
Code name: Kate

on the guest list...

Jimmy Dolittle
Betty Garrett
Jane Withers
Howard Keel
Kathryn Grayson
George Sidney
Dina Merrill
John Bowab
Rip Taylor
Ginger Rogers
Mickey Rooney
Cyd Charisse
Donald O'Connor
Esther Williams
Jane Powell
Debbie Reynolds

production team...

Researcher: Sue Green
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, Malcolm Morris
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

The Glamorous Life

Hollywood in the spotlight

The Audience

the applause, laughter and tears

Mickey Rooney

Ann Miller This Is Your Life Big Red Book

Photographs and screenshots of Ann Miller This Is Your Life - a photograph of Ann Miller's big red book and a rare audience ticket from the show's recording

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

We flew back to Hollywood to spring our surprise on 25 February 1993 on the great Ann Miller, she of the legendary legs which could 'machine-gun' tap at five hundred a minute. She had been booked for a celebrity interview at the studios of CBS in Television City. She did not know that Stage 42 was ours.

How about this for a story you could hardly invent? Her mother, Clara, takes the little Ann to dancing lessons in her home city of Houston, Texas, to strengthen her rickets-threatened legs. Those legs were to be insured by MGM for a million dollars – each.

Divorced, mother takes twelve-year-old Ann to Hollywood. She wins a talent contest. The result: a booking at the Bel Tabarin in San Francisco. Who should walk in one night but Lucille Ball? Who should be with her but an RKO movies talent scout?

But Ann was still only thirteen. Her mother quickly added five years to her daughter's age to make her more acceptable in an adult part, and the result was a starring role in Life of the Party.

What a party we had that night, with contributions from Mickey Rooney (with whom she co-starred in Sugar Babies), Cyd Charisse, Donald O'Connor, Esther Williams, Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds and surprise guests Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson from Kiss Me Kate – in which Ann performed the unforgettable 'Too Darn Hot' dance routine.

We finished with another dance routine from the 1937 film Stage Door in which she featured in a double act.

Her partner had been Ginger Rogers. Though confined to a wheelchair, Ginger was at our stage door to surprise her friend. She told us she had kept a couple of secrets about Ann during the making of that film: firstly, she knew Ann was really only fourteen and, secondly, she was wearing lower heels and a sawn-off topper so the difference of the two twinkle-toes stars would not be apparent.

Ann Miller and Ginger Rogers, together on camera again, fifty-six years after Stage Door. The essence of This Is Your Life.

Series 33 subjects