This Day in History, 1931-2024: Mitzi Gaynor loved Vancouver, and Vancouver loved her back

Mitzi first played here in 1966, and used to perfect her Vegas shows at the Cave

Published Oct 19, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Mitzi Gaynor in 1988. Vancouver Sun

Mitzi Gaynor never became the big movie star many predicted after her role in South Pacific in 1958.
But she didn’t seem to have any regrets — she became one of the biggest nightclub acts in show business instead.

Vancouver was one of the keys to her success — for years she perfected her Vegas shows at the Cave nightclub on Hornby street before heading south.

Gaynor died Oct. 17 in Los Angeles at the age of 93.

Article content

Born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago, on Sept. 4, 1931, she grew up in a musical family, and started performing in childhood.

Gaynor was in 19 films in the 1950s and 60s, and was one of the last stars from the heyday of the Hollywood musical. But the roles dried up in the early 1960s, and she switched to the stage, where her energy, talent and cheerful personality were a perfect fit.

In 1961, she got paid $40,000 a week to play the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and drew rave reviews from the get-go.

“There are plenty of entertainers — such as Jayne Mansfield, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jane Russell, Mamie Van Doren and Ann Sothern — who have ‘names,’ but their talent, as displayed on supper-club stages here, may be called microscopic,” write Lloyd Shearer in Weekend magazine on Nov. 25, 1961.

“Mitzi Gaynor was paid $40,000 a week because she was new to Las Vegas and has genuine talent. She can sing, dance, quip, impersonate. She gives an audience its money’s worth.”

Her live prowess was a natural fit for television. When The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 16, 1964, Mitzi was the headliner.

Article content

Article content

High kicking Mitzi Gaynor steps out in a marching and dancing salute to parades with her Ten Dancin’ Men at The Cave supper club in 1980. PNG

She made her first Vancouver appearance at the Cave on July 4, 1966.

“She is more enchanting onstage than she ever was on the screen,” wrote Lorne Parton in The Province. “An excellent dancer (one-time student of Vancouver’s Aida Broadbent), a passable singer and a pert performer, she has all the necessary attributes for selling production number — including a zingles figure.”

The Sun’s Jack Richards was just as impressed.

“If they could package Mitzi Gaynor’s personality they could sell it on the days the sun doesn’t shine,” Richards wrote. “At 35, she radiates the zest for life of a teenager. And the effervescent joy she exudes onstage at the Cave Theatre restaurant where she is currently appearing is her. It’s not something put on with the makeup and costumes.”

Gaynor came back in May 1969 and Parton was wowed by her “mini-musical version of Gone With The Wind that started off funny and went absolutely hysterical.”

“Scarlet doing bumps and grinds in a hoop skirt?” he wrote. “Four Southern suitors doing a strip?”

And so it went, every time she came here. A 1971 ad in The Province quoted two Sun writers, Jack Wasserman and Bob Smith.

Article content

“Mitzi Gaynor gives the audience something that is so rare these days: A first-class entertaining show,” said Wasserman.

“I came away with eyes and ears popping, and a feeling that I had feasted to excess,” wrote Smith.

She seemed to love Vancouver as much as its audiences loved her. When she had foot surgery and had to cancel a series of dates here in 1991, she told the Sun “I’m very disappointed. Vancouver is my favourite city in the whole world.”

Mitzi Gaynor with Hugh Pickett, 1976. Vancouver Sun

Part of the reason she loved it here was her good friend Hugh Pickett, who promoted her local shows. Pickett used to joke that the reason he was able to save the Orpheum Theatre from destruction in the 1970s was that Mayor Art Phillips got to dance with Mitzi, who did a Save The Orpheum benefit for free.

When Pickett died in 2006, his partner gave the Sun Gaynor’s home phone number in Beverly Hills for a comment. Gaynor said she fell in love with Pickett the first night she played the Cave.

“With his ebullience and his knowledge and his charm and his savvy, I’ve never known a man in the theatre like him,” she said.

“He was an entrepreneur of the first grade. He had that audience going crazy over me! From that time on for 20 years every single May or June we broke in our act at the Cave, and that was all because of Hugh Pickett.”

Article content

[email protected]

Vancouver mayor Art Phillips and entertainer Mitzi Gaynor in 1976. Photo by Ian Lindsay /PNG

Mitzi Gaynor And Rossano Brazzi In South Pacific, 1958. Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images /Getty Images

American actress Mitzi Gaynor visits Hawaii to film the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘South Pacific’, 1958. Photo by Keystone /Getty Images

A sketch by the famous designer Bob Mackie of a costume designed for Mitzi Gaynor made in 1967. Gaynor gave it to Hugh Pickett and signed it “To Hugh with love-1981.” Photo by Handout /Vancouver Sun

Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen and Mitzi Gaynor at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in 1996. Malcolm Parry photo Photo by Malcolm Parry /VANCOUVER SUN

July 19, 1966 photo of Mitzi Gaynor (standing) meeting dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet at an after hours party at the Casa d’Italia restaurant in Vancouver. Photo by Ken Oakes /PNG

Recommended from Editorial

1. 

   The late Hugh Pickett liked to collect stuff. Antiques, art, movie posters, autographed photos of Hollywood stars — his Kerrisdale home was brimming with all sorts of treasures.

2. 

   In the spring of 1968, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in came out of nowhere to become the most popular show on television.

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.

Article content