‘Anything Goes’ for Gaynor in O.C. Arts Center Revival

At the very least, it will be an unusual birthday present. A week after she turns 59, Mitzi Gaynor will be starring in “Anything Goes” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where a national touring version of Cole Porter’s musical will be launched on Sept. 12.

Mitzi Gaynor? Yes, the one and only. But isn’t she a little old for the role? Well, wasn’t Chita Rivera touring in “Can-Can” last season at age 55? And isn’t Debbie Reynolds touring in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” this season at age 57? The fact is Gaynor happens to be one of the great song-and-dance stars of her generation.

Hard though it is hard to believe, this revival will be the first musical-comedy Gaynor has done on stage since she was discovered as a teen-ager by Edwin Lester and cast in “Song Without Words” for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. All the musicals for which she is remembered--”South Pacific,” “My Blue Heaven,” “Les Girls” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”--were her Hollywood movies.

Gaynor will reprise the role of Reno Sweeny, which Ethel Merman created on Broadway in 1934 and Patti Lupone re-created in the revival mounted at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1987. Leslie Uggams has since replaced Lupone. That tour, which was expected to run for 18 months in 70 cities, had to be cut short last February after three months when the huge sets proved impractical on the road. (Negative notices didn’t help either.)

The conventional wisdom had it that putting “Anything Goes” back on tour was a dead issue and that it eventually would be replaced in the Center’s Broadway Series. But Miles Wilkin, president of PACE Theatricals (which co-produces the subscription series at the Center), vowed to produce a scaled-down version of the Lincoln Center touring production with another star.

It took months to sign Gaynor for the show. Over the weekend, PACE and co-producer Eugene Wolsk were still going back and forth with her over “creative rights,” according to insiders. Gaynor wants to have a say in the casting and in other technical matters. As of Monday, her signature was still awaited but was considered a done deal. The producers also expect to sign Philip Tusick as the director and Tommy Walsh as the choreographer.

The star is saving her comments for the tour’s official announcement today. The last time this reporter talked with her, a couple of years ago, Gaynor looked as hot as anyone had a right to look at her (or any) age. Her dark wool suit clung to her hips, emphasizing her wicked legs. “The legs,” she said, “are in the genes.”

Gaynor was full of quips. Told that her name had drawn a blank at the front desk of the Fifth Avenue hotel where she was occupying a two-bedroom suite overlooking New York’s Central Park, Gaynor explained that she always traveled as “Mrs. Jack Bean” (the name of her husband of 35 years). “Liz Taylor likes getting married,” she said. “I like being married. There’s a difference.”

Although the suite was costing her a fortune, Gaynor contended that she was a cheapskate. “Don’t you know I pinch my pennies?” she asked. “I’m a Virgo. Most Virgos are cheap.” She also recounted a humbling lesson she once learned from a savvy New York fan who once hung her out to dry for taking stardom too seriously.

As Gaynor told it, she was standing in front of the Plaza Hotel one day many years ago, looking very grand and bejeweled in a new mink coat, when she noticed three young women coming down the street toward her on Central Park South. Presuming they were about to ask for an autograph, she virtually had her hand crooked, waiting for them to slide in the pen.

“There I was, showing them lots of teeth and lip liner and looking rather smashing, thank you very much, and these women walked right by me,” Gaynor remembered. “What humiliation! They really had my number because one of them turned around and shouted, ‘Hey Mitz! Brando’s at the Essex House!’ So, whenever you think, ‘Look at me!’ there’s always somebody hotter up the street.”

After the golden age of Hollywood musicals faded in the mid-1950s, Gaynor made the transition to television with variety specials. When variety bowed to sitcoms, she took her nightclub act to the casinos, first in Las Vegas and later in Atlantic City. But it is her movie career that many of her fans cherish most--especially “South Pacific” in 1958.

Gaynor claims that she landed the role of Nellie Forbush only because she could sing in the same key as Mary Martin, who originated the role on Broadway. Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor and Jean Simmons coveted the role, and all three campaigned for it. But Gaynor iced the competition with a live audition for Oscar Hammerstein.

She made a mere 16 movies, and most of them are not really memorable. In fact, one of them is a remake of “Anything Goes” with Bing Crosby. But it is nothing like Porter’s shipboard musical.

Perhaps her Hollywood career seems larger than it was because she appeared opposite so many screen greats: Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor and Marilyn Monroe in “There’s No Business Like Show Business”; Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall in “Les Girls”; Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in “My Blue Heaven”; and Frank Sinatra in “The Joker Is Wild.”

Center officials declined to comment about the new opening date for “Anything Goes.” The announced date is Sept. 19. But, according to two sources, the show has been moved forward a week and reportedly will run Sept. 12 through 18.