Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • FALL 2016 • sai-national.org 10 C D E H I J K N O P R S T U W X Y Z GRACE NOTE Remembering Marni Nixon SAI Honorary Member Marni Nixon, the leading voice of many of Hollywood's greatest musicals, passed away in July after fighting breast cancer. She was 86. Born Margaret Nixon McEathron near Los Angeles, Nixon studied the violin early on and won her first singing competition at age 11. She later became a voice student of SAI Honorary Members Sarah Caldwell and Vera Schwarz. She herself was initiated as an Honorary Member in 1962 by the Sigma Tau Chapter at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, as noted in the Summer 1962 PAN PIPES. "With unusual ability in the field of contemporary music, Igor Stravinsky uses her in many performances of his compositions. For Columbia Records, she has recorded many of Stravinsky's songs, plus vocal works by Schoenberg and Webern, with Robert Craft conducting," the article reads. "Miss Nixon has appeared under Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Alfred Wallenstein and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with the Hollywood Bowl Association under Van Beinum, Chavez and Stokowski, and with Roger Wagner-San Diego Symphony. Opera appearances have been with the Los Angeles Guild Opera under Carl Ebert, the New England Opera Company, San Francisco Cosmopolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera Company in such roles as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Gilda in Rigoletto, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, and others." Nixon was the singing voice of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn in film and the soundtracks of The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady. Her film voice dubbing (or "ghosting") earned her the moniker of the "ghostess with the mostest" by Time Magazine. Her on-screen film roles include Aunt Alice in I Think I Do and Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music. She won four Emmys for Best Actress on her children's TV show called Boomerang and two gold records for Songs for Mary Poppins and Mulan. She was nominated twice for classical Emmys. Her Broadway work included Heidi Schiller in Sondheim's Follies, and she originated the roles of Sadie McKibben in Opal, Edna in Taking My Turn, and Aunt Kate in James Joyce's The Dead. In Regional and Off-Broadway theater, her roles included Nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret, and Eunice Miller in Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70. In the Premiere of Richard Wagner's Opera Ballymore at Skylight Opera in Milwaukee, WI, she originated the role of Mrs. Wilson. In addition to her numerous appearances on TV shows, she was a frequent guest and side-kick for Liberace and Victor Borge. Her national tours included her show Marni Nixon: The Voice of Hollywood. A much sought after judge of Metropolitan Opera Auditions and the National Association of Teachers and Singing, Nixon presented Master Classes at colleges and universities and taught privately throughout the USA. In November 2006, the Seattle Alumnae Chapter hosted Nixon for a masterclass and a signing of her memoir I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story. Her sister Ariel Witbeck is a charter member of Beta Upsilon at California State University, Los Angeles and currently affiliated with the East Bay Alumnae Chapter.

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