NANETTE FABRAY
Name: Nanette Fabray
Born: 27 October 1920 San Diego, California
Nanette Fabray (born October 27, 1920) is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning
American actress.
Born as Nanette Ruby Bernadette Fabares in San Diego, California, she overcame a
significant hearing impairment to pursue her career and has been a long-time
advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing. Her honors representing
the handicapped include the President's Distinguished Service Award and the
Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
In vaudeville from the age of six, Fabray made her first film appearance in the
Our Gang short Cradle Robbers in 1924. Her feature debut came as one of Bette
Davis' ladies-in-waiting in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). In
1953, she played her most famous screen role as a Betty Comden-like playwright
in MGM's The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan. Their performance
included a classic musical number, "Triplets", that was eventually included in
That's Entertainment Part II. Additional film credits include The Subterraneans
and The Happy Ending.
Fabray made her Broadway debut in Let's Face It! in 1941. Additional theatre
credits included By Jupiter, Bloomer Girl, High Button Shoes, Make a Wish, Love
Life for which she won the Tony Award, and Mr. President, which garnered her a
second nomination.
In her early Broadway and film appearances, Fabray was credited as Fabares. The
pronunciation is the same, but she changed the spelling following an
embarrassing moment on The Ed Sullivan Show, when the famed host, reading a cue
card, mispronounced her name on live television as "Nanette Fa-bare-ass."
Fabray became a household name with her appearances on Caesar's Hour, for which
she won three Emmys. Fabray appeared on several series as the mother of a main
character: on One Day at a Time she was Ann Romano's mom; on Mary Tyler Moore
she was mother to Mary Richards, and on Coach, she played mother to real-life
niece Shelley Fabares.
She also made appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, Burke's Law, Love, American
Style, Maude, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote. Her brief, eponymous 1961
comedy series was cancelled after 13 episodes. On the PBS program, Pioneers of
Television: Sitcoms, Mary Tyler Moore credited her well-known "crying" takes to
mimicking Fabray's style of comic crying.
Fabray's most recent work was in 2007, when she apppeared in The Damsel
Dialogues, an original revue by composer Dick de Benedictus, with direction/choreography
by Miriam Nelson. The show focused on women's' issues with life, love, loss and
the work place. The play was performed at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks,
California.
Name: Nanette Fabray
Born: 27 October 1920 San Diego, California
Nanette Fabray (born October 27, 1920) is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning
American actress.
Born as Nanette Ruby Bernadette Fabares in San Diego, California, she overcame a
significant hearing impairment to pursue her career and has been a long-time
advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing. Her honors representing
the handicapped include the President's Distinguished Service Award and the
Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
In vaudeville from the age of six, Fabray made her first film appearance in the
Our Gang short Cradle Robbers in 1924. Her feature debut came as one of Bette
Davis' ladies-in-waiting in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). In
1953, she played her most famous screen role as a Betty Comden-like playwright
in MGM's The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan. Their performance
included a classic musical number, "Triplets", that was eventually included in
That's Entertainment Part II. Additional film credits include The Subterraneans
and The Happy Ending.
Fabray made her Broadway debut in Let's Face It! in 1941. Additional theatre
credits included By Jupiter, Bloomer Girl, High Button Shoes, Make a Wish, Love
Life for which she won the Tony Award, and Mr. President, which garnered her a
second nomination.
In her early Broadway and film appearances, Fabray was credited as Fabares. The
pronunciation is the same, but she changed the spelling following an
embarrassing moment on The Ed Sullivan Show, when the famed host, reading a cue
card, mispronounced her name on live television as "Nanette Fa-bare-ass."
Fabray became a household name with her appearances on Caesar's Hour, for which
she won three Emmys. Fabray appeared on several series as the mother of a main
character: on One Day at a Time she was Ann Romano's mom; on Mary Tyler Moore
she was mother to Mary Richards, and on Coach, she played mother to real-life
niece Shelley Fabares.
She also made appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, Burke's Law, Love, American
Style, Maude, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote. Her brief, eponymous 1961
comedy series was cancelled after 13 episodes. On the PBS program, Pioneers of
Television: Sitcoms, Mary Tyler Moore credited her well-known "crying" takes to
mimicking Fabray's style of comic crying.
Fabray's most recent work was in 2007, when she apppeared in The Damsel
Dialogues, an original revue by composer Dick de Benedictus, with direction/choreography
by Miriam Nelson. The show focused on women's' issues with life, love, loss and
the work place. The play was performed at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks,
California.