The New York Times called Marni Nixon the most underrated singer in the history of American cinema. The artist lent her beautiful soprano to great stars such as Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, and Marilyn Monroe. Actresses graced cinema screens and red carpets, but it was she who sang for them. Marni Nixon performed all of Wood’s vocal parts in “West Side Story”, it is she, not Hepburn, who sings in “My Fair Lady”, and it is her voice – not Monroe’s – that we hear in the songs in the film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”.
She lent her voice to the hit “The King and I”, she was paid $420 for her work and was not included in the credits
In 1956, Deborah Kerr was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Anna in The King and I. The film’s soundtrack album sold hundreds of thousands of copies. In the production you can also hear not the voice of a big star, but Marni Nixon. As we read on classicfm.com, the singer was paid a paltry $420 for her work, and her name was omitted from the credits.
Marni Nixon was born in 1930 in southern California as Margaret Nixon McEathron. As a child, she sang in choirs and played parts in films. She soon became a student of soprano Vera Schwarz and began her career as an opera singer. She became a “ghost singer” by accident. According to independent.co.uk, she first voiced the angel appearing to Ingrid Bergman in the 1948 film “Joan of Arc”. Then she dubbed for Margaret O’Brien in “The Secret Garden” and sang for Marilyn Monroe in the comedy “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”.
She couldn’t show off her work, the studio threatened her
Back then, similar practices were commonplace. Hollywood stars were cast in the main roles, even when the film required significant vocal skills that they lacked. The problem was solved by overlaying recordings of trained singers. Nixon had a unique talent for reflecting the actresses’ emotions and imitating their vocal tones in her singing, without the audience noticing the difference. What did film studios particularly care about? “They told me that if anyone ever found out that I was dubbing Kerr, they would make sure I would never get a job in the city again,” the singer recalled in a 2007 interview with ABC.
As it turned out, Twentieth Century Fox should have directed its threats regarding confidentiality to another person. Deborah Kerr revealed in a 1956 interview with The Mirror that she and Nixon shared parts of the songs. However, not every actress reacted so positively to the creators’ decision. Natalie Wood, who played Maria in “West Side Story”, was sure that Nixon would only play a few fragments of high vocals. Throughout the entire process of working on the musical, the studio hid from the star the fact that her parts would be replaced. When the truth came to light, the actress was furious.
Anonymity never bothered Nixon at work. This changed thanks to “West Side Story”. “I then realized how important my singing was to the overall work. I was sharing my talent and someone else was taking credit,” Nixon said in an interview in The Times in 1967. Before the film “My Fair Lady” was released, the ghost singer resigned from her profession. She was tired of the lack of recognition for her work and had an identity crisis.
“I learned to adapt my voice to the movements of my face and lips, and even the pronunciation of the actresses I sang for. It got to the point where I lent my voice to so many people that I felt that it no longer belonged to me. I had the impression that I had lost a part of myself ” – Nixon told the New York Journal-American in 1964. From the mid-1960s, the singer began to work entirely on her own account. She appeared in “The Sound of Music” as Sister Sophia and officially voiced Grandma Fa in “Mulan.” She was also an accomplished concert singer, soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and a recitalist at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Town Hall in New York. She also sang in one of Leonard Bernstein’s songs.
Additionally, Nixon taught voice at the California Institute of Arts and the Music Academy of the West and published an autobiography titled “I Could Have Sung All Night.” She died on July 24, 2016 of breast cancer at the age of 86.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
