American tap dancer, singer and actress, who became one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. The combination of her talents endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Her enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, frequent illness, and ultimately her sudden death due to complications of nasal surgery at age 37.
The tiny, delicate-featured blonde was only four years old when she debuted in August 1903 in the role of Mademoiselle Sugarlump at Lakeside Park in Dayton, Ohio, performing as a member of her family’s vaudeville act “The Columbian Trio”.
Florenz Ziegfeld made her a star after she performed in his Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 in Manhattan at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, with music by Irving Berlin. Sharing billing with Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and W. C. Fields, she brought the house down with her impersonation of Ziegfeld’s wife, Billie Burke, in a number titled “Mine Was a Marriage of Convenience”.
After a rift with Ziegfeld, Miller signed with rival producer Charles Dillingham and starred as Peter Pan in a 1924 Broadway revival, then as a circus queen in Sunny (1925), with music by Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. A box-office smash, it featured the classic “Who?”, and made her the highest paid star on Broadway. In 1928, after reuniting with Ziegfeld, she starred in his production of the successful George Gershwin musical Rosalie, then in Smiles (1930) with Fred Astaire, a rare Ziegfeld box office failure.
Miller’s movie career was short-lived and less successful than her stage career. She made only three films: adaptations of Sally (1929); and Sunny (1930); and Her Majesty Love (1931), with W. C. Fields.
Miller followed as a headliner in the Follies of 1919, dancing to Berlin’s “Mandy” and reputedly became Ziegfeld’s mistress, though this was never proven. She attained legendary status in the Ziegfeld production Sally (1920) with music by Jerome Kern, especially for her performance of Kern’s “Look for the Silver Lining”. The musical, about a dishwasher who joins the Follies and marries a millionaire, ran 570 performances at the New Amsterdam.
Miller married four times; to Frank Carter, an actor and acrobatic dancer (1919-1920); to Jack Pickford, an actor and the brother of film star Mary Pickford (1922-1927); to Jack Donohue, a dancer, director and choreographer; and to Chester O’Brien, a chorus dancer (1934-1936). In 1930, Miller was briefly engaged to Michael Farmer, who later became a husband of Gloria Swanson. In 1932, she announced her intention to marry actor Don Alvarado, but the wedding did not take place.
Miller had a long history of sinus infections, and her health was compromised by an increasing dependence on alcohol. According to reports shortly before her death, she entered a New York hospital in early March 1936 to recover from a nervous breakdown. Three weeks later, however, she developed a toxic condition and died from complications following surgery on her nasal passages at Doctors Hospital in New York City at 9:25 AM on 7 April 1936.
Link to Wikipedia biography