Berkshires Weeks, July 31, 2003.
Marni Nixon is 'Giving up the ghost'
By Milton Bass
Unlike old soldiers, Marni Nixon at 73 has no intention of fading away.
"I'm not quite sure about my high Fs," she said in a recent interview, "but I must live right because my voice can still sound exactly like it did 50 years ago. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just beginning and although the road is harder than it used to be, I try to keep in shape and I’m still going strong.”
Nixon, of course, is famous as "The Ghostess With the Mostess" because she dubbed the singing for Audrey Hepburn in the movie version of "My Fair Lady," for Deborah Kerr in the movie version of “The King and I” and for Natalie Wood in the movie version of “West Side Story.” She also did singovers for various other actresses in films and television, ranging from Marilyn Monroe in her prime and Ethel Waters past her prime.
Nixon has become a familiar entertainer in the Berkshires through her association with the Barrington Stage Company. Artistic director Julianne Boyd cast her in the stunning production of "Cabaret" a few years ago and since then Nixon has been returning to the BSC each summer in her one-woman show that is basically a musical autobiography.
She started her musical career in her native California as a violinist at the age of 9 but it was her pure soprano that netted her the roles in various productions until she got her big break in "The King and I."
"Somebody else had been hired to do the singing," she said, "but it didn't work out and 10 days before the production was to start they were stuck. I had been doing incidental voices and they asked me to lay down a track. They played it for Richard Rodgers and he approved and two days later I started the job.”
The only one of the potentates who really respected the kind of work Nixon was doing was Leonard Bernstein, and he showed his appreciation by giving her a small percentage of his royalties from the "West Side Story" movie.
Several years went by before she was able to talk her way backstage at one of his concerts to thank him for what he had done. She knocked on his dressing room door and he opened it himself, looked at her and said: "Well, well, well. Marni Nixon Gold. 9040 Hollywood Hills Road, Los Angeles, California."
"Can you imagine that?" she asked, still incredulous all these years later. "He not only remembered me but he remembered my address. How did he know my address? Can you imagine that?”
Nixon also spent a couple of years touring with Victor Borge and then Liberace. She was the soprano who sang seriously while they clowned around.
What about the famous moment when the soprano shrieks and Borge falls off the piano stool to the floor? "Mine," she said. "I created a lot of stuff for him. He refused to rehearse or tell me what he was going to do. He would say things like 'When you hear B minor, sing “Summer Time." One night he stuck a banana in my mouth when I was about to sing. I never knew from one show to the next what we were going to do.
"Liberace was totally different, but he also liked to improvise. He did everything himself. Picked the material. Designed my costumes. We would have a production meeting and he would say 'You are Miss Malaprop. So just be natural.' He was like a computer brain. He was magic." Nixon thought to herself for a moment.
"Borge was a wonderful musician," she said, "but a skinflint. Liberace was totally generous. He came to me and said that the next tour was going to be throughout the South, one night stands. He said the living conditions would be tougher and the travel more arduous. I told him I didn't think I wanted to do it. He pleaded with me but I decided that it wasn’t for me. I was tired. When he saw that I wasn’t going to change my mind, he started to cry. But I didn’t go.”
Nixon has traveled all over the world doing concerts and in touring productions.
"I love the Mozart soubrette roles, lots of coloratura roles," she said.
"In addition to my one-woman show, I have done a series of Wolf songs in concert this year, and the early songs of Franz Waxman. I do a lot at colleges and give master classes in voice. Last year I did 'Follies' with Blythe Danner for three months when they needed a replacement. I’m as busy as I want to be but now I only do things that interest me. I’m also trying to write my autobiography. Right now it’s called ‘Marni: Giving up the Ghost.’ I have two chapters done but I need a ghost writer. I had one but she started changing my quotes so I dropped her."
Nixon has been married three times and had three children with her first husband. Her son, Andrew Gold, is a songwriter and performer. He wrote the "Thank You for Being My Friend," children's classic and the theme song for the "Golden Girls" TV series. Her older daughter is a Los Angeles psychologist and her younger daughter is a singer-songwriter. There are five grandchildren to complement the group. Her present husband, Al Block, is a retired jazz musician who is now “a symphonic flutist and a tennis bum.”
Any thoughts of retiring? "I'm just beginning," she said vigorously. "I try to keep in shape. I’ll see you next year."
© 2005 New England Newspapers, Inc.
