Tag Archives: The King and I

Marni Nixon, behind-scenes Hollywood vocalist, dies

MarniNixonwithJBinterview-e1469560234720rotIt was so sad to hear of the death of Marni Nixon, a wonderful lady with whom I’d just recently conducted a long, on-camera career history (for the Film Music Foundation, to be posted online soon). I wrote this obituary for Variety that talks a bit about her three famous “ghost singing” gigs: for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. But she was much more than that, singing (from the late 1940s on) as part of the Roger Wagner Chorale, in many classical and opera performances, and even classic TV themes (she was in the choir for I Married Joan in 1954!).