Marni Nixon

Called "the queen of the dubbers" by musical theater historian Kurt Gänzl, soprano singer Marni Nixon enjoyed a lengthy career in film, opera, television, recordings, and the legitimate stage, even though her voice was much more familiar to the mass audience than her face or her name. Her reputation as a singer's singer rests on the series of movie musicals of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s in which she served as a "ghost singer," dubbing in her voice to replace that of such non-singing stars as Margaret O'Brien, Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn. In that capacity, the...