Ann Miller

When she was in her early teens, she was advised to pretend she was 18 in order to get a job in the movies. Her father wanted a boy, so Ann was named Johnnie Lucille Collier, and she later went by Lucille. In 1937, in order to keep her contract with RKO Pictures, she got a fake birth certificate, which said she was Lucille Ann Collier, born on April 12, 1919 in Chireno, Texas.

Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier on April 12, 1923 in Chireno, Texas. She lived there until she was nine, when her mother left her philandering father and moved with Ann to Los Angeles, California. Even at that young age, she had to support her mother, who was hearing-impaired and unable to hold a job. After taking tap-dancing lessons, she got jobs dancing in various Hollywood nightclubs while being home-schooled.

Although some sources list her year of birth as 1919, the U.S. census taken on April 1, 1930, several years before she entered show business, gives her age as 7 years (Harris County, Texas, enumeration district 71, p. 2A, family 86).

She made herself four years older, when she began working in Hollywood. She became an excellent tap dancer after her mother told her while watching Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) starring Eleanor Powell if she would practice a little that same quality.

Then, in 1937, RKO asked her to sign on as a contract player, but only if she could prove she was 18.

Though she was really barely 14, she managed to get hold of a fake birth certificate, and so was signed on, playing dancers and ingénues in such films as Stage Door (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), Room Service (1938) and Too Many Girls (1940).

At just 15-years-old, she played the wife of Dub Taylor - who was 16 years her senior - in You Can't Take It with You (1938).

In 1939, she appeared on Broadway in "George White's Scandals" and was a smash, staying on for two years.

Eventually, RKO released her from her contract, but Columbia Pictures snapped her up to appear in such World War II morale boosters as True to the Army (1942) and Reveille with Beverly (1943). When she decided to get married, Columbia released her from her contract. The marriage was sadly unhappy and she was divorced in two years.

She was buried next to her miscarried daughter, which reads "Beloved Baby Daughter Mary Milner November 12, 1946".

This time, MGM picked her up, showcasing her in such films as Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

In the mid-1950s, she asked to leave to marry again, and her request was granted. This marriage didn't last long, either, nor did a third. Ann then threw herself into work, appearing on television, in nightclubs and on the stage.

Her favorite role was Bianca/Lois Lane in Kiss Me Kate (1953).

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

She was a smash as the last actress to headline the Broadway production of "Mame" in 1969 and 1970, and an even bigger smash in "Sugar Babies" in 1979, which she played for nine years, on Broadway and on tour.

Made something of a comeback in the early 1970s singing and dancing in the Busby Berkeley-inspired television commercials for Heinz's "Great American Soups". The song she sang was written by humorist Stan Freberg and choreographed by Danny Daniels.

In Call Her Mom (1972), she was replaced by Gloria DeHaven after she, herself, had replaced Cyd Charisse.

Nominated for the 1980 Tony Award (New York City) for Best Actress in a Musical for "Sugar Babies".

She has cut back in recent years, but did appear in the Paper Mill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey) production of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" in 1998, in which she sang the song "I'm Still Here", a perfect way to sum up the life and career of Ann Miller.

Refusing to do movies for years because disliked nudity and sex, she finally relented and returned to films after nearly four decades with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001), which contained nudity and explicit sex.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 372-373. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale (2007).

Inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame (2004).

On August 5, 2020, she was honored with a day of her film-work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars.