I grew up in an L.A. household where the scheduled day for the prime time airing of a CBS Mitzi Gaynor music variety special was like a Holy Day of Obligation decreed by our mother. Those sensational specials were required viewing. Mom loved Mitzi Gaynor -- and I picked up the love from Mom. My favorite Mitzi Gaynor movie is the 1958 adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway classic, SOUTH PACIFIC. It's a tale of love, war and a plea for racial tolerance with a gorgeous score. Mitzi Gaynor plays the All-American, girl next door Army nurse stationed in the South Pacific during World War 2. Rosanno Brazzi stars as the French expatriate, the widower of a Polynesian woman, who helps the American naval forces. They two fall in love. Later, Army nurse Nellie Forbush is emotionally conflicted when she meets his two dark-skinned children. She's a native of Little Rock, Arkansas where, unfortunately, her community did not embrace racial diversity and equality. Here's any early scene from SOUTH PACIFIC with Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi. His singing was dubbed.
The Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play starred Mary Martin. The play and the movie are loosely based on the James A. Michener collection of short stories, TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. The 1947 publication won a Pulitzer Prize as did the 1949 Broadway show.
The main story used from the book is "Our Heroine" and focuses on Nellie Forbush. I read it a few summer ago and was by how bold and relevant it is. One of the main views Michener puts forth is the complexity of that war. Were all G.I.'s patriotic men fighting for freedom and democracy or were some hiding racial bigotry and using the war as an license to kill people of another race? Nellie and the other army nurses had to be careful and protected against nighttime rape by G.I's who would later be jailed. She was taught in Little Rock that it might be okay to date an Asian because they were seen as light-skinned like White people -- but dating anyone darker was definitely forbidden. While a war rages on around her, Nellie Forbush is at war with herself. Her friend, Lt. Joe Cable from Princeton, New Jersey, is also at war with himself because he has fallen in love with a lovely Tonganese woman. Here is a very strong and accurate song he sings -- the kind one did not often hear in a Broadway musical of that time. John Kerr, also dubbed, sings "Carefully Taught."
One of the strongest, most surprising and most memorable sections of the "Our Heroine" short story is Nellie's inner monologue about race and what she's been taught. She says the N-word over and over again with a World War 2 machine-gun like rapidity. She's exorcising the word and those bigoted lessons from her life so she can move on to love the expatriate and his children.
A SOUTH PACIFIC movie DVD had Mitzi Gaynor's audition as one of the extra features. When I saw it and when I watched the depth of some of her dramatic scenes in the movie, I came away with a feeling that in between the audition and landing the role, she read the source material and realized she'd be, in part, playing a dark side of the sunny All-American girl. I love her performance.
If you can find it at your local library, consider reading Michener's book -- especially that short story. Here's a Mitzi Gaynor screen test for the lead role.
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