MARNI NIXON

Written by Michael Darvell
 

(22 February 1922 - 24 July 2016)

Marni Nixon

The American singer, actress and vocal teacher Marni Nixon worked in film, TV, opera, musicals and classical concerts, but will be chiefly remembered for her work as a voiceover and playback artist who dubbed many famous actresses whose own singing voices were perhaps less than perfect. Marni had always performed as a child and later sang in choirs including the Roger Wagner Chorale. She studied singing and opera but her film career started in 1942 in The Bashful Bachelor. She was the voices Ingrid Bergman heard in Joan of Arc. Then she sang for Margaret O’Brien in Big City (1948) and The Secret Garden (1949) and was the singing voices of Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), the geese in Mary Poppins (1964) and Mulan (1998). Although Marni, who had a clear soprano voice, did sing in opera and act on stage and in films (she was Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music) she also did TV work with Danny Kaye, Woody Woodbury, Joey Bishop, Jerry Seinfeld and had her own show Boomerang. With her fine vocal range she managed to dub other actors such as Deborah Kerr in The King and I and An Affair to Remember, Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Gypsy, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, as well as Janet Leigh and Jeannie Crane. Marni Nixon was married three times, first to film composer Ernest Gold (Exodus) with whom she had three children. Both Andrew and Melanie are singer-songwriters.

MICHAEL DARVELL

 
Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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