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Nanette Fabray | |
|---|---|
 Fabray in 1963 | |
| Born | Ruby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares (1920-10-27)October 27, 1920 San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Died | February 22, 2018(2018-02-22) (aged 97) Palos Verdes, California, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1924–2007 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Shelley Fabares (niece) |
Nanette Fabray[needs IPA] (bornRuby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares;[1] October 27, 1920 – February 22, 2018) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began her career performing invaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role inHigh Button Shoes (1947) and winning aTony Award in 1949 for her performance inLove Life. In the mid-1950s, she served asSid Caesar's comic partner onCaesar's Hour, for which she won threeEmmy Awards, and appeared withFred Astaire in the film musicalThe Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV seriesOne Day at a Time. She also appeared as the mother of Christine Armstrong (played by her nieceShelley Fabares) in the television seriesCoach.
Fabray had significanthearing impairment and was a longtime advocate for the rights of the deaf and hearing-impaired people. Her honors included thePresident's Distinguished Service Award and theEleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
Fabray was born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares on October 27, 1920, in San Diego, California to Lily Agnes (née McGovern), a housewife, and Raoul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor.[2]
She used one of her middle names, Nanette, as her first name in honor of a beloved aunt from San Diego named Nanette. Throughout life, she often used the nickname Nan.[1] Her family resided in Los Angeles, and Fabray's mother was instrumental in introducing her to show business as a child. At a young age, she studiedtap dance with, among others,Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. She made her professional stage debut as Miss New Year's Eve 1923 at theMillion Dollar Theater at the age of three.[3] She spent much of her childhood appearing in vaudeville productions as a dancer and singer under the name Baby Nan. She appeared with stars such asBen Turpin.
Despite her mother's influence, Fabray was not interested in show business as a young girl. Consequently, as an adult she did not believe in pushing children into performing at a young age.[1] However, because of her early dance training, Fabray considered herself to be primarily a tap dancer.[4] Despite a persistent rumor, she was never a regular or recurring guest in theOur Gang series, but she did appear as anextra during a party scene.[1]
Fabray's parents divorced when she was nine, but they continued living together for financial reasons. During theGreat Depression, her mother converted their home into a boarding house, which Fabray and her siblings helped to run, and her main job was ironing clothes.[1] In her early teenage years, Fabray attended theMax Reinhardt School of the Theatre on a scholarship. She then attendedHollywood High School, participating in the drama program and graduating in 1939.[1] She bested classmateAlexis Smith for the lead in the school play during her senior year. Fabray enteredLos Angeles Junior College in the fall of 1939, but she did not fare well and withdrew a few months later.[1]
Fabray experienced difficulty in school because of an undiagnosed hearing impairment. She was later diagnosed withconductive hearing loss related to congenital, progressiveotosclerosis in her twenties after an acting teacher encouraged her to have her hearing tested. Fabray said of the experience, "It was a revelation to me. All these years I had thought I was stupid, but in reality, I just had a hearing problem."
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At the age of 19, Fabray made her feature-film debut as one ofBette Davis's ladies-in-waiting inThe Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). She appeared in two additional films that year forWarner Bros.,The Monroe Doctrine (short) andA Child Is Born, but was not signed to a long-term studio contract. She next appeared in the stage productionMeet the People in Los Angeles in 1940, which then toured the United States in 1940–1941. In the show, she sang the opera aria "Caro nome" fromGiuseppe Verdi'sRigoletto while tap dancing. During the show's New York run, Fabray was invited to perform the "Caro nome" number for a benefit atMadison Square Garden withEleanor Roosevelt as the main speaker.Ed Sullivan was themaster of ceremonies for the event and mispronounced her name, prompting her to subsequently change the spelling of her name from Fabares to the more easily pronounced Fabray.[5]
Artur Rodziński, conductor of theNew York Philharmonic, saw Fabray's performance inMeet the People and offered to sponsor operatic vocal training for her at theJuilliard School. She studied opera at Juilliard withLucia Dunham in 1941 while performing in her firstBroadway musical,Cole Porter'sLet's Face It!, withDanny Kaye andEve Arden.[6] However, as she preferred performing inmusical theatre over opera, she withdrew from the school after about five months.[1] She became a successful musical-theatre actress in New York during the 1940s and early 1950s, starring in such productions asBy Jupiter (1942),My Dear Public (1943),Jackpot (1944),Bloomer Girl (1946),High Button Shoes (1947),Arms and the Girl (1950) andMake a Wish (1951). In 1949, she won theTony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Susan Cooper in theKurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner musicalLove Life. She received a Tony nomination for her role as Nell Henderson inMr. President in 1963 after an 11-year absence from the New York stage.[5] Fabray continued to tour in musicals for many years, appearing in such shows asWonderful Town andNo, No, Nanette.
In the mid-1940s, Fabray worked regularly forNBC on a variety of programs in the Los Angeles area. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she made her first high-profile national television appearances performing on a number of variety programs such asThe Ed Sullivan Show,Texaco Star Theatre andThe Arthur Murray Party.
She also appeared onYour Show of Shows as a guest star oppositeSid Caesar. She appeared as a regular onCaesar's Hour from 1954 to 1956, winning three Emmys. Fabray left the show after a misunderstanding when her business manager made unreasonable demands for her third-season contract. Fabray and Caesar did not reconcile until years later.[7] In December 1956, she appeared in an episode ofPlayhouse 90 titled "The Family Nobody Wanted" alongsideLew Ayres andTim Hovey.
In 1961, Fabray starred in 26 episodes ofWestinghouse Playhouse, a half-hour sitcom series that also was known asThe Nanette Fabray Show orYes, Yes Nanette. The character was loosely based on herself and her life as a newlywed with new stepchildren.[8]
Fabray appeared as the mother of the main character in several television series such asOne Day at a Time,The Mary Tyler Moore Show andCoach, in which she played mother to real-life nieceShelley Fabares, who became a regular cast member inOne Day at a Time.
Fabray made 13 guest appearances onThe Carol Burnett Show. She performed on multiple episodes ofThe Dean Martin Show,The Hollywood Palace,Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall andThe Andy Williams Show. She was a panelist on 230 episodes of the long-running game showThe Hollywood Squares, a mystery guest onWhat's My Line? and later a panelist onMatch Game in 1973. Other recurring game-show appearances included participation inPassword,I've Got a Secret,He Said, She Said andCelebrity Bowling,Stump the Stars,Let's Make a Deal,All Star Secrets, andFamily Feud.
She appeared in guest-starring roles onBurke's Law,Love, American Style,Maude,The Love Boat andMurder, She Wrote. During thePBS programPioneers of Television: Sitcoms,Mary Tyler Moore credited Fabray with inspiring her trademark comedic crying technique. In 1986, Fabray was cast in the pilot episode of the unsoldTBS sitcom projectHere to Stay.
In 1953, Fabray played her best-known screen role as aBetty Comden-like playwright in theMGM musical comedyThe Band Wagon, performing in, among others, the musical numbers "That's Entertainment" and "Louisiana Hayride"; and in "Triplets" which was also included inThat's Entertainment, Part II. Fabray's additional film credits includeThe Happy Ending (1969),Harper Valley PTA (1978) andAmy (1981).[citation needed]
Fabray's final work occurred in 2007 when she appeared inThe Damsel Dialogues, a musical revue at the Whitefire Theatre inSherman Oaks, California.
Fabray's first husbandDavid Tebet was in television marketing and talent and later became a vice president at NBC.[9] According to Fabray, their marriage ended in divorce partially because of her depression, anxiety and insecurity related to her worsening hearing loss. Her second husband was screenwriterRanald MacDougall, whose writing credits includeMildred Pierce andCleopatra and who served as president of theWriters Guild of America in the early 1970s, They were married from 1957 until MacDougall's death in 1973 and had one son together, Jamie MacDougall.[2]
Fabray lived inPacific Palisades, California, and was the aunt of singer/actressShelley Fabares. Her niece's 1984 wedding toM*A*S*H actorMike Farrell was held at her home.[10] Fabray was associated with her longtime neighborRonald Reagan's campaign for the governorship of California in 1966.[11]
She was hospitalized for almost two weeks after being rendered unconscious by a falling pipe backstage during a live broadcast ofCaesar's Hour in 1955.[2] The audience in the studio heard her screams and Sid Caesar had at first been told that she had been killed in the freak accident. Fabray suffered a serious concussion along with associated temporary vision impairment andphotosensitivity/photophobia. Later, she realized that she had avoided being directly impaled because she was bending down rather than standing straight at the time of the accident.[12] In 1978, during the filming ofHarper Valley PTA, Fabray suffered a second major concussion after falling, hitting her neck on the sidewalk and the back of her head on a rock. The accident was caused when a live elephant appearing in the film stampeded when it was spooked by a drunken bystander. Fabray developed associated memory loss and visual issues such asnystagmus but had to finish her scenes, including one involving a car chase. She was closely directed, coached, and fed lines as she could not remember her lines or cues as a result of the concussion. She was filmed from specific angles to hide the abnormal eye movements that the concussion had temporarily caused.[13]
A longtime champion of hearing awareness and support of the deaf, she sat on boards and spoke at many related functions. A forward-thinking proponent ofTotal Communication and teaching the deaf language and communication in any way possible, includingAmerican Sign Language and not just theoralism method of the time, Fabray was one of, if not the first, to use sign language on [live] television,[14] something which she continued to showcase on many programs on which she made appearances, including theCarol Burnett Show,Match Game '73, andI've Got a Secret. She even contributed the story line to an entire 1982 episode[citation needed] ofOne Day at a Time, which focused on hearing loss awareness and acceptance, treatment options, and sign language. Fabray appeared in a 1986 infomercial for hearing device and deafness support products for House Ear Institute.[15] In 2001, she wrote to advice columnistDear Abby to decry the loudbackground music played on television programs.[16] A founding member of the National Captioning Institute,[1] she also was one of the first big names[17] to bring awareness to the need for media closed-captioning.[18]
Likewise, after the passing of her second husband, Randy MacDougall, Fabray also started to learn about the tribulations associated with spousal death and began to bring awareness to the need for changes in the law for widows and widowers.[19] She focused her later years on campaigning for widows' rights, particularly pertaining to women's inheritance laws, taxes, and asset protection.[20]
Fabray died on February 22, 2018, at the Canterbury nursing home in California at the age of 97 from natural causes.[21] She was cremated atHoly Cross Cemetery, Culver City in its crematory. Her urn was buried next to her second husband, Ranald MacDougall, afterwards.
A Tony and three-time Primetime Emmy award winner, Fabray has a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame.[22] In 1986, she received aLife Achievement award from theScreen Actors Guild.
She won aGolden Apple Award from theHollywood Women's Press Club in 1960 along withJanet Leigh for being a Most Cooperative actress.[citation needed]
She was awarded the President's Distinguished Service Award and theEleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for her long efforts on behalf of the deaf and hard-of-hearing.[22]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | Heebee Jeebees | Child at Society Party (uncredited) | Short |
| 1939 | The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex | Mistress Margaret Radcliffe | as Nanette Fabares |
| A Child Is Born | Gladys Norton | as Nanette Fabares | |
| The Monroe Doctrine | Rosita De La Torre | Short as Nanette Fabares | |
| 1953 | The Band Wagon | Lily Marton | |
| 1960 | The Subterraneans | Society Woman | Uncredited |
| 1969 | The Happy Ending | Agnes | |
| 1970 | The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County | Sadie | |
| 1978 | Harper Valley PTA | Alice Finley | |
| 1981 | Amy | Malvina | |
| 1989 | The McFalls | Mildred McFall | also known asPersonal Exemptions |
| 1994 | Teresa's Tattoo | Martha Mae | also known asNatural Selection |
| 2003 | Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There | Herself |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre | Season 1 Episode 25: "Londonderry Air" | |
| 1952 | The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima | Florinda | Unconfirmed, uncredited |
| 1953 | Omnibus | Raina Petkoff | Season 1 Episode 26: "Arms and the Man" |
| 1954–1956 | Caesar's Hour | Herself | |
| 1956 | Saturday Spectacular: High Button Shoes | Sara Longstreet (uncredited) | TV Movie |
| Playhouse 90 | Helen Doss | Season 1 Episode 12: "The Family Nobody Wanted" | |
| 1957 | The Alcoa Hour | Rosemary Chase | Season 2 Episode 13: "The Original Miss Chase" |
| The Kaiser Aluminum Hour | Josephine Evans | Season 1 Episode 21: "A Man's Game" | |
| 1959 | Laramie | Essie Bright | Season 1 Episode 2: "Glory Road" |
| 1960 | Startime | Sally | Season 1 Episode 33: "The Nanette Fabray Show, or Help Me, Aphrodite" |
| 1961 | The Nanette Fabray Show | Nanette "Nan" McGovern | Series regular |
| 1964 | Burke's Law | Amanda Tribble / Rowena Coolidge | 2 episodes |
| 1965 | Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre | Hannah King | Season 2 Episode 18: "In Any Language" |
| 1966 | Alice Through the Looking Glass | The White Queen | TV Movie |
| Fame Is the Name of the Game | Pat | TV Movie | |
| 1967 | The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. | Desiree | Season 1 Episode 24: "The Petit Prix Affair" |
| NBC Experiment in Television | Narrator (voice) | Season 1 Episode 6: "Theater of the Deaf" | |
| The Jerry Lewis Show | Sgt. Muldoon | Season 1 Episode 3: "Nanette Fabray, Al Hirt" | |
| 1967–1972 | The Carol Burnett Show | Herself | 13 episodes |
| 1968–1972 | Laugh-In | Guest Performer | 3 episodes |
| 1970 | George M! | Helen Costigan 'Nellie' Cohan | TV Movie |
| Howdy | TV Movie | ||
| But I Don't Want to Get Married! | Mrs. Vale | TV Movie | |
| 1970–1973 | Love, American Style | Phyllis / Cindy / Casey / Helen | 4 episodes |
| 1972 | Magic Carpet | Virginia Wolfe | TV Movie |
| The Couple Takes a Wife | Marion Randolph | TV Movie | |
| The Mary Tyler Moore Show | Dottie Richards | 2 episodes | |
| 1974 | Happy Anniversary and Goodbye | Fay | TV Movie |
| 1977 | Maude | Katie Malloy | Season 5 Episode 18: "Maude's Reunion" |
| 1978–1981 | The Love Boat | Mitzy Monroe / Maggie O'Brian / Shirley Simpson | 3 episodes |
| 1979 | The Man in the Santa Claus Suit | Dora Dayton | TV Movie |
| 1979–1984 | One Day at a Time | Grandma Katherine Romano | 46 episodes (Recurring role) |
| 1981 | Aloha Paradise | Season 1 Episode 2: "The Star/The Trouble with Chester/Fran's Worst Friend" | |
| 1983–1986 | Hotel | Harriet Gold / Maggie Lewis | 2 episodes |
| 1986 | Here to Stay | Aunt Elizabeth | Sitcom Pilot (Unaired) |
| 1989 | The Munsters Today | Dottie | Season 1 Episode 13: "Computer Mating" |
| 1990–1994 | Coach | Mildred Armstrong | 3 episodes |
| 1991 | Murder, She Wrote | Emmaline Bristow | Season 7 Episode 16: "From the Horse's Mouth" |
| 1993 | The Golden Palace | Fern | Season 1 Episode 13: "Rose and Fern" |
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