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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2016 - 10:37 AM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/arts/music/marni-nixon-singer-soprano-dies-86.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=1
Marni Nixon, the Singing Voice Behind the Screen, Dies at 86
Marni Nixon, the American cinema’s most unsung singer, died on Sunday in Manhattan. She was 86.
The cause was breast cancer, said Randy Banner, a student and friend. Ms. Nixon, a California native, had lived in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, for more than 40 years.
Classically trained, Ms. Nixon was throughout the 1950s and ’60s the unseen — and usually uncredited — singing voice of the stars in a spate of celebrated Hollywood films. She dubbed Deborah Kerr in “The King and I,” Natalie Wood in “West Side Story” and Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady,” among many others.
Her other covert outings included singing for Jeanne Crain in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” Janet Leigh in “Pepe” and Ida Lupino in “Jennifer.” “The ghostess with the mostest,” the newspapers called her, a description that eventually began to rankle.
Before her Hollywood days and long afterward, Ms. Nixon was an acclaimed concert singer, a specialist in contemporary music who appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic; a recitalist at Carnegie, Alice Tully and Town Halls in New York; and a featured singer on one of Leonard Bernstein’s televised young people’s concerts.
Her concerts and her many recordings — including works by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Webern, Ives, Copland, Gershwin and Kern — drew wide critical praise. Yet as late as 1990, decades after Ms. Nixon had made good on her vow to perform only as herself, she remained, in the words of The Los Angeles Times, “the best known of the ghost singers.”
Continue reading the main story
At midcentury, Hollywood was more inclined to cast bankable stars than trained singers in films that called for singing. As a result, generations of Americans have grown accustomed to Ms. Nixon’s voice, if not her face, in standards like “Getting to Know You,” from “The King and I”; “I Feel Pretty,” from “West Side Story”; and “I Could Have Danced All Night,” from “My Fair Lady.”
Deborah Kerr was nominated for an Academy Award in 1956 for her role as Anna in “The King and I”; the film’s soundtrack album sold hundreds of thousands of copies. For singing Anna’s part on that album, Ms. Nixon recalled, she received a total of $420.
(Thanks cinemel for the link.)
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Melanie Gold, their daughter, is a fine singer.
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Marni was a legend and it's sad news. That said, my heart actually sank because I first read the thread as Marti Noxon, one of the showrunners for BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Her DVD commentaries are among my faves, as is her fun musical performance in the BTVS musical episode, "Once More With Feeling."
In any case, RIP Marni Nixon and thank the Lord that Marti Noxon is still with us.
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Sadly, though, her father, Nicholas Noxon recently passed away. (I met her at the memorial, and she's a lovely person.) The Hollywood Reporter has a TV series of industry panel discussions on the Independent Film Channel. Just last Sunday, Marti was one of the show-runners discussing their jobs. I think you'll enjoy it if you can catch it later in re-run.
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They hired her for WEST SIDE STORY because they said she had "nerves of iron".
She made it to 86 and had quite a career.
Brava.
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Russ Garcia told me she did all the voice bits on his FANTASTICA album. R.I.P.
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I am fortunate to have seen her in person once. In the late 80's here in NYC there was a (now defunct) restaurant, 'The Fortune Garden' which would showcase various jazz acts. Inside, there was a piano bar lounge, that featured singer-pianists such as Daryl Sherman and Buddy Barnes. There would be attendance late hours by cabaret/jazz performers after they finished their repective acts elsewhere, to relax and schmooze with their brethren and at times after prodding even stepped up to the mic. Did see Sylvia Syms, Dolly Dawn, and the bassist Major Holley.
One night Marni Nixon popped in with some friends, did an improptu performance with the attending pianist and yes, did mention to everyone sitting enraptured, her dubbing history, notably West Side Story - stated cutely with that “Maria” Spanish accent.
Thanks M.N.
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2016 - 12:45 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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For THE KING AND I (1956), Marni Nixon was hired on a six-week contract, and she was to be at the studio every day that Deborah Kerr rehearsed a scene with a song in it. Nixon would actually stand next to Kerr and walk through the whole scene--both of them singing--and Nixon would be looking closely at Kerr's facial expressions to try to imitate her speech pattern in the songs.
Nixon said that she realized the keys of Kerr's songs were very low for her--"very contralto keys"--and that she was really too young (just 25) to be able to sound "adult" and "womanly." Hence, a modifier was placed in Nixon's microphone, to make her voice sound deeper and more mature. "I have a very light, bright ring to my voice, and I tried to take that out" she said. "But they were able to use this modifier to emphasize the lower partials of my voice. I also remember having a terrible cold at the time, not being able to breathe in those recording sessions. But that probably helped in matching Deborah's voice, deepening it."
In a 2007 interview, Nixon recalled "You always had to sign a contract that nothing would be revealed. Twentieth Century Fox, when I did THE KING AND I, threatened me. They said, 'If anybody ever knows that you did any part of the dubbing for Deborah Kerr, we'll see to it that you won't work in town again.'"
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2016 - 2:37 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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On WEST SIDE STORY (1961), Marni Nixon recalls: "I knew that I would never be cast physically in the role of "Maria." In the picture they wanted Maria to sound like a sixteen-year-old, and they kept trying out Natalie's voice. Natalie was perfectly musical, but I had the feeling that it was only gradually, when they started working with her, that they said to themselves, "I don't think she is able to do it at all." I was hanging around and not knowing how much of my voice was going to be used except for a few high notes that she knew she couldn't sustain. In the end, Natalie recorded everything to her own takes and sometimes was even out of synch. My main job was to fix up all the inconsistencies of her original recordings. I had to loop all the vocals after the film was finished."
In addition to recording Maria's singing voice for Natalie Wood, Nixon also looped some of Wood's dialogue that needed to be fixed in post-production. Although dubbing Natalie Wood was Nixon's chief assignment, Nixon also did one number for Rita Moreno, which required a relatively high vocal register. That dubbing was at the end of "Quintet." The reason was that Moreno and Betty Wand (who dubbed Moreno on some songs) both had colds and could not sing, so the filmmakers asked Nixon to do the ending. So she is singing two voices at once.
Having dubbed Moreno as well as Wood, Nixon felt she deserved a cut of the soundtrack album royalties. Neither the movie nor the record producers would bow to her demands, and told her (and the other dubbing artists) to talk with Leonard Bernstein since he (and Stephen Sondheim) had retained the album rights. Nixon, a friend of Bernstein, flew her agent to New York to negotiate her deal. Since Nixon had been a performer and colleague of Bernstein's at his New York Philharmonic concerts, he ceded one-quarter of one percent of his royalties to her. Reportedly, Nixon's first royalty check was for $18,000.
In a 1967 interview, Nixon said "The anonymity didn't bother me until I sang Natalie Wood's songs in WEST SIDE STORY. Then I saw how important my singing was to the picture. I was giving my talent, and somebody else was taking the credit."
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