Nanette Fabray (1920 - 2018) - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Zoneboy · 02-23-2018, 07:19 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/o...ies-at-97.html

Nanette Fabray, whose enthusiastic charm, wide smile and diverse talents made her a Tony Award-winning performer in the 1940s and an Emmy Award-winning comic actress in the 1950s, died on Thursday at her home in Palos Verdes, Calif. She was 97.

Her son, Dr. Jamie MacDougall, confirmed her death.

Ms. Fabray was 28 when she received the Tony for best actress in a musical for her performance in “Love Life,” a collection of sketches with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Kurt Weill. It was her seventh Broadway show and followed her success in Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “High Button Shoes” the season before. Brooks Atkinson, writing about that musical in The New York Times, had called her “a neatly designed show-shop ingénue with considerable crackle.”

In 1956 she won two Emmy Awards, as best comedienne (as the category was then known) and best actress in a supporting role, for her work on “Caesar’s Hour,” the follow-up to “Your Show of Shows,” in which Sid Caesar had starred with Imogene Coca.

The next year, Ms. Fabray won another Emmy for the series, 10 months after she had been dismissed by the producers. Years later she said she had been fired because her agent made demands for her third-season contract that the producers considered unreasonable.

Ms. Fabray nearly gave her life for the show. In 1955, she was hospitalized for almost two weeks after being knocked unconscious by a falling pipe backstage during a broadcast.

The stage and the small screen turned out to be Ms. Fabray’s métiers, but she started out in film. Her first movie role was as a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939). In that and the two other film dramas she made that year, she was billed as Nanette Fabares. She changed the spelling of her surname after too many public mispronunciations.

Ms. Fabray had one notable film success: the Comden and Green musical “The Band Wagon” (1953), directed by Vincente Minnelli. The film included the number “Triplets,” in which she, Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan played infants, with adult-size heads and torsos but short, stubby baby legs.

Ruby Nanette Bernadette Theresa Fabares was born on Oct. 27, 1920, in San Diego. Her family soon moved to Los Angeles, where Nanette began working in vaudeville at age 4. Her father, Raul, was a train engineer; her mother, the former Lily McGovern, took in boarders. Ms. Fabray recalled that her other childhood job was ironing lodgers’ shirts.

She attended Los Angeles Junior College and studied acting with the Austrian-born director Max Reinhardt, but she had academic difficulties because of an undiagnosed hearing problem. The problem was eventually corrected by surgery, and she became a spokeswoman and advocate for the hearing-impaired.

Ms. Fabray was 21 when she appeared in her first Broadway show, “Let’s Face It,” (1941), a musical comedy, starring Danny Kaye and Eve Arden, about three married women who hire soldiers as escorts. She left the show in 1943 to take a small replacement role in Rodgers and Hart’s “By Jupiter.”

After appearing in two short-lived shows, “My Dear Public” and “Jackpot,” Ms. Fabray replaced Celeste Holm in 1945 as the star of Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s “Bloomer Girl,” a musical comedy set in the 1860s. Two years later she married one of the show’s publicists, David Tebet. They divorced in 1951, and in 1957 she married Ranald MacDougall, a screenwriter.

Mr. MacDougall died in 1973. Besides her son, Ms. Fabray is survived by two grandchildren.

Although she continued to work on Broadway after her Tony win, Ms. Fabray began concentrating on television. Her first credited appearance was on “The Chevrolet Tele-Theater” in 1949, but she had already been involved in demonstrations of the new medium.

After the Caesar show, Ms. Fabray attempted a sitcom of her own, but “The Nanette Fabray Show” (1961), also known as “Westinghouse Playhouse,” lasted less than a season. She went on to four decades of television movies and guest appearances on series, including “Love, American Style,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (as Ms. Moore’s mother), “One Day at a Time” (as Bonnie Franklin’s mother) and the 1990s sitcom “Coach,” on which she played the mother of her real-life niece Shelley Fabares.

For many years she acted in television movies and made guest appearances on TV series. She also had prominent roles on the sitcoms

Back on the New York stage in 1963, she received a Tony nomination for her role as a fictional first lady in “Mr. President,” Irving Berlin’s last Broadway show. Her final Broadway appearance went less well: “No Hard Feelings,” a 1973 comedy that also starred Eddie Albert, closed after opening night.

Ms. Fabray continued to do stage work (in 2007 she appeared in “The Damsel Dialogues” in Sherman Oaks, Calif.), but said more than once that live television was her first love. As she told a reporter for The New York Times in 1955, “It involves a form of insanity that reminds me of make-believe games that you played as a child.”

When asked about her career, she declared that comic ability was unteachable but acknowledged one factor in her success. During her third Broadway show, she told the Archive of American Television in 2004, things changed because “I fell in love with the audience, and I fell in love with performing.”

Mr. Television · 02-23-2018, 07:24 PM

Oh wow. I always liked her. R.I.P. Nanette.

Bonniegirl · 02-23-2018, 07:29 PM

Oh no!! Grandma Romano ! Very sad!!!

RIP Nanette /Grandma. Joining Bonnie/Ann and Pat/ Schneider in heaven!

opus · 02-23-2018, 07:57 PM

Svenfan1234 · 02-23-2018, 08:06 PM

RIP Grandma Romano. One of the best.

Ron Ron · 02-23-2018, 10:33 PM

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0ee6416a34d70

OH Nuts! · 02-23-2018, 11:21 PM

I really liked her a lot. R.I.P. Nanette

PracTz · 02-25-2018, 06:43 PM

It's now been two days since Miss Fabray's passing has been announced but neither of the performers who played her granddaughters seem to have had time to say anything publicly on the subject. Draw your own conclusions.

AB · 02-26-2018, 05:34 PM

Rest in peace.

Bonniegirl · 02-27-2018, 12:11 PM

faraj · 03-02-2018, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PracTz

It's now been two days since Miss Fabray's passing has been announced but neither of the performers who played her granddaughters seem to have had time to say anything publicly on the subject. Draw your own conclusions.

Wonder if her real life niece, Shelley (Francine from 1DAAT, Mary from the Donna Reed Show, Christine from Coach), has issued a statement yet.

AngieTribeca · 03-05-2018, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PracTz

It's now been two days since Miss Fabray's passing has been announced but neither of the performers who played her granddaughters seem to have had time to say anything publicly on the subject. Draw your own conclusions.

Can we grow up here. Just because they have not said anything publically does not mean that they don't care. She was not as crucial of a character as Bonnie or Pat so the cast does not have to say anything.

opus · 03-05-2018, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngieTribeca

Can we grow up here. Just because they have not said anything publically does not mean that they don't care. She was not as crucial of a character as Bonnie or Pat so the cast does not have to say anything.

Valerie Bertinelli and Glenn Scarpelli have since posted tributes. I haven't seen one from Mackenzie Phillips, but that doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere, I just haven't come across it. But I agree with you. Everyone's allowed to grieve in their own way.

PracTz · 03-06-2018, 04:17 AM

opus,

Well, better late than never, I guess.

Dude111 · 03-07-2018, 12:55 AM

Very sad

02-23-2018, 07:19 PM	#1
Zoneboy RIP, I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU :( Moderator Forum Superstar Join Date: Jul 13, 2003 Location: AT HOME WISHING ALL THIS WAS JUST A DREAM AND THAT I'LL WAKE UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE. Posts: 34,338	Nanette Fabray (1920 - 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/o...ies-at-97.html Nanette Fabray, whose enthusiastic charm, wide smile and diverse talents made her a Tony Award-winning performer in the 1940s and an Emmy Award-winning comic actress in the 1950s, died on Thursday at her home in Palos Verdes, Calif. She was 97. Her son, Dr. Jamie MacDougall, confirmed her death. Ms. Fabray was 28 when she received the Tony for best actress in a musical for her performance in “Love Life,” a collection of sketches with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Kurt Weill. It was her seventh Broadway show and followed her success in Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “High Button Shoes” the season before. Brooks Atkinson, writing about that musical in The New York Times, had called her “a neatly designed show-shop ingénue with considerable crackle.” In 1956 she won two Emmy Awards, as best comedienne (as the category was then known) and best actress in a supporting role, for her work on “Caesar’s Hour,” the follow-up to “Your Show of Shows,” in which Sid Caesar had starred with Imogene Coca. The next year, Ms. Fabray won another Emmy for the series, 10 months after she had been dismissed by the producers. Years later she said she had been fired because her agent made demands for her third-season contract that the producers considered unreasonable. Ms. Fabray nearly gave her life for the show. In 1955, she was hospitalized for almost two weeks after being knocked unconscious by a falling pipe backstage during a broadcast. The stage and the small screen turned out to be Ms. Fabray’s métiers, but she started out in film. Her first movie role was as a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939). In that and the two other film dramas she made that year, she was billed as Nanette Fabares. She changed the spelling of her surname after too many public mispronunciations. Ms. Fabray had one notable film success: the Comden and Green musical “The Band Wagon” (1953), directed by Vincente Minnelli. The film included the number “Triplets,” in which she, Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan played infants, with adult-size heads and torsos but short, stubby baby legs. Ruby Nanette Bernadette Theresa Fabares was born on Oct. 27, 1920, in San Diego. Her family soon moved to Los Angeles, where Nanette began working in vaudeville at age 4. Her father, Raul, was a train engineer; her mother, the former Lily McGovern, took in boarders. Ms. Fabray recalled that her other childhood job was ironing lodgers’ shirts. She attended Los Angeles Junior College and studied acting with the Austrian-born director Max Reinhardt, but she had academic difficulties because of an undiagnosed hearing problem. The problem was eventually corrected by surgery, and she became a spokeswoman and advocate for the hearing-impaired. Ms. Fabray was 21 when she appeared in her first Broadway show, “Let’s Face It,” (1941), a musical comedy, starring Danny Kaye and Eve Arden, about three married women who hire soldiers as escorts. She left the show in 1943 to take a small replacement role in Rodgers and Hart’s “By Jupiter.” After appearing in two short-lived shows, “My Dear Public” and “Jackpot,” Ms. Fabray replaced Celeste Holm in 1945 as the star of Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s “Bloomer Girl,” a musical comedy set in the 1860s. Two years later she married one of the show’s publicists, David Tebet. They divorced in 1951, and in 1957 she married Ranald MacDougall, a screenwriter. Mr. MacDougall died in 1973. Besides her son, Ms. Fabray is survived by two grandchildren. Although she continued to work on Broadway after her Tony win, Ms. Fabray began concentrating on television. Her first credited appearance was on “The Chevrolet Tele-Theater” in 1949, but she had already been involved in demonstrations of the new medium. After the Caesar show, Ms. Fabray attempted a sitcom of her own, but “The Nanette Fabray Show” (1961), also known as “Westinghouse Playhouse,” lasted less than a season. She went on to four decades of television movies and guest appearances on series, including “Love, American Style,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (as Ms. Moore’s mother), “One Day at a Time” (as Bonnie Franklin’s mother) and the 1990s sitcom “Coach,” on which she played the mother of her real-life niece Shelley Fabares. For many years she acted in television movies and made guest appearances on TV series. She also had prominent roles on the sitcoms Back on the New York stage in 1963, she received a Tony nomination for her role as a fictional first lady in “Mr. President,” Irving Berlin’s last Broadway show. Her final Broadway appearance went less well: “No Hard Feelings,” a 1973 comedy that also starred Eddie Albert, closed after opening night. Ms. Fabray continued to do stage work (in 2007 she appeared in “The Damsel Dialogues” in Sherman Oaks, Calif.), but said more than once that live television was her first love. As she told a reporter for The New York Times in 1955, “It involves a form of insanity that reminds me of make-believe games that you played as a child.” When asked about her career, she declared that comic ability was unteachable but acknowledged one factor in her success. During her third Broadway show, she told the Archive of American Television in 2004, things changed because “I fell in love with the audience, and I fell in love with performing.”

02-23-2018, 07:24 PM	#2
Mr. Television 22 Years at Sitcoms Online Forum Icon Join Date: Jun 06, 2003 Location: Somewhere you're Not Posts: 62,125	Oh wow. I always liked her. R.I.P. Nanette.
	__________________ Sonny

02-23-2018, 08:06 PM	#5
Svenfan1234 Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 12, 2015 Posts: 11,200	RIP Grandma Romano. One of the best.
	__________________ [

02-23-2018, 07:29 PM	#3
Bonniegirl AKA Hazel Horvath Forum Addict Join Date: Jul 10, 2014 Posts: 65,424	Oh no!! Grandma Romano ! Very sad!!! RIP Nanette /Grandma. Joining Bonnie/Ann and Pat/ Schneider in heaven!

02-23-2018, 07:57 PM	#4
opus VB Forum Superstar Join Date: May 16, 2015 Location: VB Galaxy Posts: 32,105

02-23-2018, 10:33 PM	#6
Ron Ron Member Senior Member Join Date: Oct 30, 2005 Posts: 2,138	https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0ee6416a34d70

02-23-2018, 11:21 PM	#7
OH Nuts! Member Forum King Join Date: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 133,383	I really liked her a lot. R.I.P. Nanette

02-25-2018, 06:43 PM	#8
PracTz Member Senior Member Join Date: Jul 14, 2002 Location: United States of America [Happily Living in the 20th Century] Posts: 2,711	It's now been two days since Miss Fabray's passing has been announced but neither of the performers who played her granddaughters seem to have had time to say anything publicly on the subject. Draw your own conclusions.

02-26-2018, 05:34 PM	#9
AB Member Eternal Member Forum Icon Join Date: Dec 26, 2006 Location: The South Posts: 59,426	Rest in peace.

02-27-2018, 12:11 PM	#10
Bonniegirl AKA Hazel Horvath Forum Addict Join Date: Jul 10, 2014 Posts: 65,424

03-06-2018, 04:17 AM	#14
PracTz Member Senior Member Join Date: Jul 14, 2002 Location: United States of America [Happily Living in the 20th Century] Posts: 2,711	opus, Well, better late than never, I guess.

03-07-2018, 12:55 AM	#15
Dude111 Forum Legend Join Date: Nov 05, 2013 Posts: 35,438	Very sad