Marilyn Miller

 Marilyn Miller, born Mary Ellen Reynolds (September 1, 1898 – April 7, 1936)

She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Miller appeared in New York City for the Shuberts in the 1914 and 1915 editions of The Passing Show, a Broadway revue at the Winter Garden Theatre, as well as in The Show of Wonders (1916) and Fancy Free (1918). It was, however, Florenz Ziegfeld who made her a star after she performed in his Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 in Manhattan at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, with music by Irving Berlin. Sharing billing with Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and W. C. Fields, she brought the house down with her impersonation of Ziegfeld's wife, Billie Burke, in a number titled "Mine Was a Marriage of Convenience". After a rift with Ziegfeld, Miller signed with rival producer Charles Dillingham and starred as Peter Pan in a 1924 Broadway revival, then as a circus queen in Sunny (1925), with music by Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. A box-office smash, it featured the classic "Who?", and made her the highest paid star on Broadway. In 1928, after reuniting with Ziegfeld, she starred in his production of the successful George Gershwin musical Rosalie, then in Smiles (1930) with Fred Astaire, a rare Ziegfeld box office failure. Miller's movie career was short-lived and less successful than her stage career. She made only three films: adaptations of Sally (1929); and Sunny (1930); and Her Majesty Love (1931), with W. C. Fields. Her last Broadway show, marking a major comeback, was the innovative 1933-1934 Irving Berlin/Moss Hart musical As Thousands Cheer, in which she appeared in the production number "Easter Parade".

She was married three times, her second husband was Jack Pickford, brother of Mary Pickford. Miller had a long history of sinus infections, and her health was compromised by an increasing dependence on alcohol. According to reports shortly before her death, she entered a New York hospital in early March 1936 to recover from a nervous breakdown. Three weeks later, however, she developed a toxic condition and died from complications following surgery on her nasal passages at age 37 in New York City on the morning of April 7, 1936. She is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, NY, with her first husband Frank Carter.