Marni Nixon: Singing voice of the stars

what is your name please my name is Marni Nixon my name is Marni Nixon my name is Marni Nick Anneliese three ladies oh yeah was 1964 to tell the truth the TV game show was about to introduce America to one of its most talented singers while millions of movie fans have heard my voice in films few have ever seen my face the person they saw in the ki the legendary 1956 movie musical for Rodgers and Hammerstein's was leading lady Deborah cars but the voice they heard all four octaves of us was the voice of Marni Nixon which we listened to these tracks that you have done are we hearing the same person is this Marni Nixon or is it different for each actress that you well it's all Marni Nixon the whole job of really doing a good dubbing job is if you don't detect that there's any Tambor or any difference in pronunciation that it looks like it's the actress getting to know you getting to know that required hours of study and collaboration ideally with the performers cooperation as was the case with Deborah Carr I would actually stand next to her side-by-side just like another ghost image watching her movement we would go to the soundstage and we would record that with the orchestra then when the actual filming of the scene came along then she had the mouth to that track and I feel a friend I hold my head erect did you have to sign up some kind of contract promising to be quiet oh yes yes I had to sign with all the dubbing things that nobody should ever know actually the studio in the 20th Century Fox at that time with the king and I called me and they said that if anyone ever knew that I did any part any part of the dubbing that they would see to it that I wouldn't work in town again who can you imagine I was scared to death but what word did leak out it wasn't Nixon but the star herself who spilled the beans the headline of the article was Deborah tells a secret and she said my name she said I only did the high notes which was not really true she didn't start out to be the woman we heard but rarely saw Margaret Nixon McKeith room began life in 1930 in Southern California daughter number three of four born to parents Charles and Barbara McEachran it was the time of the Great Depression but her father was one of the lucky few who kept his job working for General Motors 100 Lowe were you when you discovered that you had musical talents I was a part of a very musical family and I think they discovered that by the time I was like four years old that I had perfect pitch and I was very good at singing so good that at age 11 Marni Nixon her stage name won a singing competition of the State Fair that landed her on national radio when she graduated from high school Nixon was offered a job at MGM as a messenger girl and they were actually going to groom me for to be a starlet but what they heard impressed them as much as what they saw it wasn't long before Marni Nixon became what the studio is called a ghost a ghost certainly in movie terms would be somebody who does work like Marni Nixon has always done that is kind of uncredited Robert Osborne film historian and host of turner classic movies says it was a common practice during the heyday of movie musicals but that wasn't ever particularly talked about because they didn't Hollywood didn't want to destroy the illusion that you know what where they were presenting was not actually what we were seeing Nixon started out as the standard voice for Margaret O'Brien the child star of The Secret Garden she sang a little Hindu lullaby a few years later her trills could be heard as the voice of Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes then she was the singing voice of Deborah Carr in the film an affair to remember well singing I think is the is the best way to tell a story really it's an abstraction it's a beauty it's a it's a long line of things and you you perceive the whole story without even the words sometimes a working mother of three and wife to oscar-winning composer Ernest gold Nixon also performed as a concert soprano doing the music of great composers like Igor Stravinsky she appeared with Leonard Bernstein on his concerts for young people Series in 1961 as fate would have it cost later Nixon wound up working with Bernstein again this time singing from Natalie Wood in West Side Story and game how was Natalie Wood who was it like working with her Natalie Wood in West Side Story at that point was she was very standoffish would that hope the single complicated score herself after they had everything filmed they threw out and told her they were going to throw out her voice it wasn't good enough and that I was going to do the dubbing and she was very angry she walked out of the studio living Nixon with the challenge of matching her voice to Natalie woods on-screen performance to try to get her the breaths - yes oh yes the breath the pronunciation and Hertz the sound of her voice mix-ins next ghosting project was my fair lady starring Audrey Hepburn in the case of my fair lady was that also a deep dark secret - oh yes yes now as years later from King and I so it was not such a guarded secret that this process was even going on in the movies at that point so people were now curious about who was doing the dubbing because they really hadn't known Audrey Hepburn to be a singer Oh once again nixon kept mom about her role so when Audrey Hepburn was passed over for Oscar nomination some speculated that was the reason I think Audrey was very disappointed that it got out I think she wanted it to be protected more money Nixon's ghosting days came to an end in 1965 when she began a new life a life on-screen in the sound of music playing sister Sophia opposite Julie Andrews she rocked pester any pests drive a hornet from this violence she wasn't just heard she was seen still it's for her work behind the scenes as the singing voice of some of the greatest actresses Clarkstown Marni Nixon can take a well-deserved bow I think she definitely has a place in film history and I think if anything Marni Nixon deserves a place in film history as a representative of all those people who did wonderful dubbing through the years will the real Marni Nixon please stand up and

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 421,381

Keywords: cbs sunday morning, cbs news, news, on the road, Nixon, Audrey Hepburn, Marni

Id: 8gHWroo5F84

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 28 2016