Ann Miller was born 100 years ago today. Originally Johnnie Lucille Collier from Chireno, Texas, Miller made her mark in classic Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and ‘50s. In the 1979, she enjoyed a Broadway hit in the neo-burlesque “Sugar Babies,” with Mickey Rooney. Her final film was David Lynch’s “Mullholland Drive,” of all things, in 2004.
Late in life, she claimed to have invented pantyhose in the 1940s, as a more efficient solution than having to remove briefs for new stockings to be sewn on whenever there was a tear during production numbers.
In the 1990s, she was frequently parodied on “Saturday Night Live” by Molly Shannon, opposite Cheri Oteri’s Debbie Reynolds, in a recurring segment, “Leg Up.”
Here she is in “Small Town Girl” (1953), tapping her way through a Cocteauvian, “Beauty and the Beast”-style, partially submerged dance band!
Happy birthday, Ann Miller!