HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANN MILLER
(April 12, 1923 - January 22, 2004)

Who can forget Ann's brilliant dance numbers with Fred Astaire in Easter Parade and  her solo performances in On The Town and   Kiss Me Kate?  

Born Johnnie Lucille Collier in Houston, Texas, she began to take dance classes at the age of 5, after suffering from a case of rickets. Her mother believed learning to dance would help strengthen her daughter's legs.  She and her mother moved to Hollywood when she was nine, but because she looked older than she was, she began to work as a dancer in nightclubs to help support both of them. She adopted the stage name Ann Miller and was considered a child dance prodigy.  Inspired by the brilliant Eleanor Powell, she was determined to succeed. Hard work paid off when she was discovered by Lucille Ball and a talent scout which led to an RKO contract. For Columbia pictures she starred in Time Out For Rhythm and 11  movie musicals. The game changer was her contract with MGM.

She helped popularize pantyhose in the 1940s as a solution to the continual problem of tearing stockings during the filming of dance production numbers.  The common practice was sewing hosiery to briefs. If torn, the entire garment had to be removed and resewn with a new pair. So Ann requested a single pantyhose and a new more comfortable undergarment was born.

She was famous for her tap dancing speed. Studio publicists claimed she could tape 500 times per minute but the sound of ultra-fast 500 taps was looped in later. Because the stage floors were waxed and too slick for regular tap shoes, she had to dance in shoes with rubber treads on the sole.  Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and dance on a "tap board" to match her steps.

She replaced Angela Lansbury in the Broadway production of Mame (May 1969-Jan. 1970) and New York Post theatre critic Clive Barnes discovered "a vivacity...that made her stand out from the somewhat languid stars of the late Forties and early Fifties.'   In 1979 she joined Mickey Rooney on Broadway in Sugar Babies and critics were mixed about this tribute to burlesque but were delighted to see her in "stunning shape at whatever age she must be."

Her last stage  appearance was in the 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies in which she played hardboiled Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the song "I'm Still Here".

To honor her contribution to dance, the Smithsonian Institution displays her favorite pair of tap shoes, which she playfully nicknamed "Moe and Joe".