Singing her own song

Marni Nixon, the voice behind leading ladies, steps out of shadows for 'My Fair Lady' tour

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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You've known her voice for half a century - now it's time to meet Marni Nixon. The fixture of '50s and '60s movie musicals toiled behind the scenes, supplying much (sometimes nearly all) of the singing voice for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

She had a long and varied concert and stage career but was often put in the awkward position of singing for women who wanted to do their own music.

When the British revival of My Fair Lady pulls into Denver on Tuesday, Nixon will be seen and heard in the role of Mrs. Henry Higgins.

She spoke about her long career recently with Rocky theater critic Lisa Bornstein.

As the voice of so many stars, you were famously dubbed "The Ghostess with the Mostest." Did you hire a ghostwriter on your 2006 autobiography, I Could Have Sung All Night?

Don't you think that's funny? I think it's very funny, except that the ghosting role in writing a book is very different. Of course, he's got credit there in the beginning. I brought him because I'm not a professional writer, and we had a deadline. He learned how I wrote and how I spoke, and I had kept a lot of archives with me over the years.

On The King and I, you made a day rate for the dubbing plus a total of $420 for the album. Your name didn't appear in the movie credits or on the album. During shooting, a studio publicist called you one night at home, warning you not to reveal your role in the movie. What was that like?

I was scared to death. And I didn't think it was quite legal, but I didn't know what to do. She said that you have in your contract that nobody is supposed to know, and if you ever tell anybody that you did the dubbing for Deborah Kerr, we'll see to it that you don't work in town again. (Kerr, however, happily let people know that Nixon had sung the high notes; in truth she did far more than that.)

Were you ever resentful that you were good enough to sing all these roles but weren't getting to play them on film?

You realize that they have stars who are under contract. Audrey Hepburn was under contract; she had the pick of the new things they were going to do. Any picture that has her name on it - they know that it's going to sell. I didn't have that kind of clout. In The King and I, for instance, the first one I did, I was entirely too young to play the part anyway.

Touring in a show is notoriously difficult. Why choose to travel the country at the age of 78? And how do you do it?

You need more rest, you need not to do things so fast. . . . It's hard to be on the road, especially with a bunch of younger kids. Like in this particular production of My Fair Lady, everybody is younger and vital, and after the show sometimes they go out drinking. You can't do much of that. To me it's just silly and it wastes energy. I don't find it fun or exciting. . . . I love My Fair Lady, and I love the role, and I thought I could really do it in my own way, and that would be really satisfying.

I enjoy being in front of an audience, and it's really a treat to be doing it in a project that's close to your heart.

Movie musicals have been on a rebound in recent years, and stars are singing their own songs - sometimes to ill effect. Why do you think dubbing has gone the way of the drive-in?

There's no reason why they shouldn't hire somebody who could do it all. If you want to see Travolta or something, nowadays you want to see the whole thing. You want to see him do everything.

But what if the stars can't sing?

They should hire somebody who can do it all and forget about the star name. They should make stars of them by publicizing that person. There are thousands of talented people who could do it all who don't have the name power, maybe, so then they don't have to sell it on the star power - they can sell it on the movie itself. The play's the thing, as Shakespeare said.

Woman of a thousand voices

Marni Nixon supplied singing voices for great movie musicals. In her own words, here's how she took on the characteristics of three leading ladies:

* Deborah Kerr (The King and I): "Kerr had a very wispy kind of speaking voice, and when she sang, it sounded sort of like a boy soprano, meaning it was very pure, but it didn't have any depth to it. When there was any kind of thing with emotion, her voice would just sort of break off, because as you sing the song, she couldn't sustain the kind of depth that she had when she spoke."

* Natalie Wood (West Side Story): "Wood also had a kind of undeveloped, wispy, childlike quality when she sang. You have to have a core to the tone, and whenever she would try to do that, it would make her voice break or crack. I tried to have the tone sound like their particular speech pattern and their tone."

* Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady): "She is also a mezzo (like Nixon). I just tried to stretch my voice to get that quality that she had in her speaking voice and extend that into the dubbing part. Her Cockney accent was her Cockney accent. I had to listen very closely, and she had to approve of all the takes to make sure I had it exactly right."

My Fair Lady

* When and where: Opens Wednesday: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and March 27, 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through April 6, Buell Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex

* Cost: $15 to $95

* Information: 303-893-4100

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