Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray (born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares;[1] October 27, 1920 – February 22, 2018) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role in High Button Shoes (1947) and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, and appeared with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV series One Day at a Time. She also appeared as the mother of Christine Armstrong (played by her niece Shelley Fabares) in the television series Coach.
Nanette Fabray
February 22, 2018 (aged 97)
- Actress
- singer
- dancer
1924–2007
1
Shelley Fabares (niece)
Fabray had significant hearing impairment and was a longtime advocate for the rights of the deaf and hearing-impaired people. Her honors included the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
Early life[edit]
Fabray was born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Theresa Fabares on October 27, 1920 in San Diego, California to Lily Agnes (McGovern), a housewife, and Raoul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor.[2]
She used one of her middle names, Nanette, as her first name in honor of a beloved aunt from San Diego named Nanette. Throughout life, she often used the nickname Nan.[1] Her family resided in Los Angeles, and Fabray's mother was instrumental in introducing her to showbusiness as a child. At a young age, she studied tap dance with, among others, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. She made her professional stage debut as Miss New Year's Eve 1923 at the Million Dollar Theater at the age of three.[3] She spent much of her childhood appearing in vaudeville productions as a dancer and singer under the name Baby Nan. She appeared with stars such as Ben Turpin.
Despite her mother's influence, Fabray was not interested in showbusiness as a young girl. Consequently, as an adult she did not believe in pushing children into performing at a young age.[1] However, because of her early dance training, Fabray considered herself to be primarily a tap dancer.[4] Despite a persistent rumor, she was never a regular or recurring guest in the Our Gang series, but she did appear as an extra during a party scene.[1]
Fabray's parents divorced when she was nine, but they continued living together for financial reasons. During the Great Depression, her mother converted their home into a boarding house, which Fabray and her siblings helped to run, and her main job was ironing clothes.[1] In her early teenage years, Fabray attended the Max Reinhardt School of the Theatre on a scholarship. She then attended Hollywood High School, participating in the drama program and graduating in 1939.[1] She bested classmate Alexis Smith for the lead in the school play during her senior year. Fabray entered Los Angeles Junior College in the fall of 1939, but she did not fare well and withdrew a few months later.[1]
Fabray experienced difficulty in school because of an undiagnosed hearing impairment. She was later diagnosed with conductive hearing loss related to congenital, progressive otosclerosis in her twenties after an acting teacher encouraged her to have her hearing tested. Fabray said of the experience, "It was a revelation to me. All these years I had thought I was stupid, but in reality, I just had a hearing problem."
In 2004, Fabray was interviewed[1] for the oral-history project of the Archives of American Television.
Personal life[edit]
Fabray's first husband David Tebet was in television marketing and talent and later became a vice president at NBC.[9] According to Fabray, their marriage ended in divorce partially because of her depression, anxiety and insecurity related to her worsening hearing loss. Her second husband was screenwriter Ranald MacDougall, whose writing credits include Mildred Pierce and Cleopatra and who served as president of the Writers Guild of America in the early 1970s, They were married from 1957 until MacDougall's death in 1973 and had one son together, Jamie MacDougall.[2]
Fabray lived in Pacific Palisades, California, and was the aunt of singer/actress Shelley Fabares. Her niece's 1984 wedding to M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell was held at her home.[10] Fabray was associated with her longtime neighbor Ronald Reagan's campaign for the governorship of California in 1966.[11]
She was hospitalized for almost two weeks after being rendered unconscious by a falling pipe backstage during a live broadcast of Caesar's Hour in 1955.[2] The audience in the studio heard her screams and Sid Caesar had at first been told that she had been killed in the freak accident. Fabray suffered a serious concussion along with associated temporary vision impairment and photosensitivity/photophobia. Later, she realized that she had avoided being directly impaled because she was bending down rather than standing straight at the time of the accident.[12] In 1978, during the filming of Harper Valley PTA, Fabray suffered a second major concussion after falling, hitting her neck on the sidewalk and the back of her head on a rock. The accident was caused when a live elephant appearing in the film stampeded when spooked by a drunken bystander. Fabray developed associated memory loss and visual issues such as nystagmus but had to finish her scenes, including one involving a car chase. She was closely directed, coached and fed lines as she could not remember her lines or cues as a result of the concussion. She was filmed from specific angles to hide the abnormal eye movements that the concussion had temporarily caused.[13]
Activism[edit]
A longtime champion of hearing awareness and support of the deaf, she sat on boards and spoke at many related functions. A forward-thinking proponent of total communication and teaching the deaf language and communication in any way possible, including American Sign Language and not just the oralism method of the time, Fabray was one of, if not the first, to use sign language on [live] television,[14] something which she continued to showcase on many programs on which she made appearances, including the Carol Burnett Show, Match Game '73, and I've Got a Secret. She even contributed the story line to an entire 1982 episode of One Day at a Time, which focused on hearing loss awareness and acceptance, treatment options, and sign language. Fabray appeared in a 1986 infomercial for hearing device and deafness support products for House Ear Institute.[15] In 2001, she wrote to advice columnist Dear Abby to decry the loud background music played on television programs.[16] A founding member of the National Captioning Institute,[1] she also was one of the first big names[17] to bring awareness to the need for media closed-captioning.[18]
Likewise, after the passing of her second husband, Randy MacDougall, Fabray also started to learn about the tribulations associated with spousal death and began to bring awareness to the need for changes in the law for widows and widowers.[19] She focused her later years on campaigning for widows' rights, particularly pertaining to women's inheritance laws, taxes, and asset protection.[20]
Honors[edit]
A Tony and three-time Primetime Emmy award winner, Fabray has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[22] In 1986, she received a Life Achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild.
She won a Golden Apple award from the Hollywood Women's Press Club in 1960 along with Janet Leigh for being a Most Cooperative actress.
She was awarded the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for her long efforts on behalf of the deaf and hard-of-hearing.[22]