When I was a young starlet at MGM, part of my job was to attend social events. At the behest of the publicity department I was asked to do a number of things, among them to be taken by the publicity people to veterans' hospitals to visit "the boys."
I wasn't the only one to do this. MGM lore tells us that Ann Miller once told a veteran amputee, in her most thoughtful and gentlest voice, "Well, honey, better luck next time!"
Perhaps Ann Miller was insensitive to his legs because so much focus had been paid to her own. Ann was a dancer, singer, and actress, a native Texan who had been discovered as a nightclub dancer in San Francisco when she was only thirteen years old. She began doing musicals with RKO and Columbia Pictures until signing with MGM, where she rose to stardom in musicals like Easter Parade, On the Town, and Kiss Me Kate.
Ann's long, shapely legs were famous around the world not only because she could tap-dance faster than any other woman in the business, but simply because they were gorgeous to look at. We forget that, in that bygone era, legs mattered more than they do now. The publicity department asked starlets to display their endless legs in a variety of poses: legs kicking, legs extended, legs shown from the rear, as starlets bent over or peeked backward over their shoulders. Everywhere you saw glam shots, there were legs.
No one was leggier than Ann Miller. Her legs were so long that they were the reason panty hose were invented. Previously, long stockings had been stitched to panties, but Ann had the wardrobe department design continuous underpants that ex: tended "into hose.
Ann died several years ago, but I love to imagine her legs in a Busby Berkeley-ish heaven - still kicking. I find it hard to believe that they ever stopped. She certainly displayed them (and they looked good) long after the rest of her had aged.
I was weak in my own knees when I was told that I would fly out with Ann Miller on a four-day publicity trip to Palm Beach, Florida. Flights were different then. They took a lot longer, for one thing, and on the early Pan Am planes, the front-row seats faced one another. I found myself eye-to-eye, knee-to-knee with Ann Miller, one of my idols. She was then about twenty-five, and not only were her legs as lovely and long as advertised, but her face had a preternatural glow.
So there I was, Rosita Dolores Alverio, sitting opposite the great Ann Miller and hopelessly, totally tongue-tied. What do you say to your personal icon? You say:
Rita: I'm a dancer, too, and I've admired your dancing all my life.
Ann: Oh, that's nice, honey. What kinda dance? Rita: It's Spanish dance.
Ann: (glazed eyes)
Rita: Yeah, it's uh, you know, uh, it's flamenco, the sevillanas, pronounced "sevi-yah-nas."
Ann: Sevi-what? Sevi-what-nas? I see! Like rumbas and tangos? Spanish stuff!
Rita: (with a barely discernible sigh). Yesss ... Yes, that's kind of it .... So, I want you to know that I just love it soooo much when I've seen you dance on all those platforms and steps and stuff! I mean, it's really scary, and boy, I just don't know how you did it! (Pause.) How do you do it?
Ann: Listen, honey, what's your name?
Rita: Rita.
Ann: Well, lemme tell ya somethin', honey, if I have to do one more fuckin' dance on one more fuckin' platform, I will strangle that fuckin' choreographer!
Every time my idol dropped the old F-bomb my head literally snapped back with each utterance. I gasped but did not wish to appear critical. On this mission, Ann Miller was the headliner; I was only eye candy.
Rita Moreno " Rita Moreno" (2012)
