39 Facts About Nanette Fabray

Nanette Fabray 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 and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life.

Nanette Fabray used one of her middle names, Nanette, as her first name in honor of a beloved aunt from San Diego, whose name was Nanette.

Nanette Fabray's family resided in Los Angeles, and Fabray's mother was instrumental in getting her daughter involved in show business as a child.

Nanette Fabray made her professional stage debut as "Miss New Years Eve 1923" at the Million Dollar Theater at the age of three.

Nanette Fabray's parents divorced when she was nine, but they continued living together for financial reasons.

Nanette Fabray then attended Hollywood High School, participating in the drama program with a favorite teacher, where she graduated in 1939.

Nanette Fabray beat out classmate Alexis Smith for the lead in the school play her senior year.

Nanette Fabray entered Los Angeles Junior College in the fall of 1939, but did not do well and withdrew a few months later.

Nanette Fabray had always had difficulty in school due to an undiagnosed hearing impairment, which made learning difficult.

Nanette Fabray eventually was diagnosed with a conductive hearing loss in her twenties after an acting teacher encouraged her to get her hearing tested.

At the age of 19, Nanette Fabray made her feature film debut as one of Bette Davis's ladies-in-waiting in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.

Nanette Fabray appeared in two additional movies that year for Warner Bros.

Nanette Fabray decided that studying during the day and performing at night was too much for her and took away from her active social nightlife which she so enjoyed, and that she preferred performing in musical theatre over opera; thus she withdrew from the school after about five months.

Nanette Fabray became a successful musical-theatre actress in New York during the 1940s and early 1950s, starring in such productions as By Jupiter, My Dear Public, Jackpot, Bloomer Girl, High Button Shoes, Arms and the Girl, and Make a Wish.

Nanette Fabray received a Tony nomination for her role as Nell Henderson in Mr President in 1963, after an 11-year absence from the New York stage.

Nanette Fabray appeared on Your Show of Shows as a guest star opposite Sid Caesar.

Nanette Fabray appeared as a regular on Caesar's Hour from 1954 to 1956, winning three Emmys.

Nanette Fabray left the show after a misunderstanding when her business manager, unbeknownst to her, made unreasonable demands for her third-season contract.

In 1961, Fabray starred in 26 episodes of Westinghouse Playhouse, a half-hour sitcom series that was known as The Nanette Fabray Show or Yes, Yes Nanette.

Nanette Fabray appeared as the mother of the main character on several television series such as One Day at a Time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Coach, where she played mother to real-life niece Shelley Fabares.

Nanette Fabray made 13 guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show.

Nanette Fabray performed on multiple episodes of The Dean Martin Show, The Hollywood Palace, Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, and The Andy Williams Show.

Nanette Fabray appeared on the game shows Stump the Stars, Let's Make a Deal, All Star Secrets, and a television series families "All Star special" of Family Feud with fellow One Day at a Time cast members.

Nanette Fabray appeared in guest-starring roles on Burke's Law, Love, American Style, Maude, The Love Boat, and Murder, Nanette Fabray Wrote.

In 1986, Nanette Fabray was cast in the TBS sitcom project Here to Stay, which starred Robert Mandan and Heather O'Rourke.

In 1953, Nanette Fabray played her best-known screen role as a Betty Comden-like playwright in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan.

Longtime neighbors, Nanette Fabray was associated with Ronald Reagan's campaign for the governorship of California in 1966.

Nanette Fabray was hospitalized for almost two weeks after being knocked unconscious by a falling pipe backstage during a live broadcast of Caesar's Hour in 1955.

In 1978, during the filming of Harper Valley PTA, Nanette Fabray suffered a second major concussion when she was knocked over, hitting her neck on the sidewalk and the back of her head on a rock.

Nanette Fabray developed associated memory loss and visual issues such as nystagmus, but still had to finish her scenes in the movie, for which filming had not yet finished.

Nanette Fabray had to be closely directed and coached, fed line-by-line, as she could not remember any of her lines or cues due to the concussion.

Nanette Fabray had to be filmed only from specific angles to mask the obvious abnormal eye movements the concussion had temporarily caused.

Nanette Fabray 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.

Nanette Fabray appeared in a 1986 infomercial for hearing device and deafness support products for House Ear Institute.

Likewise, after the passing of her second husband, Randy MacDougall, Nanette Fabray 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.

Nanette Fabray focused her later years on campaigning for widows' rights, particularly pertaining to women's inheritance laws, taxes, and asset protection.

Nanette Fabray died on February 22,2018, at the Canterbury Nursing home in California at the age of 97 from natural causes.

Nanette Fabray won a Golden Apple award from the Hollywood Women's Press Club in 1960 along with Janet Leigh for being a Most Cooperative actress.

Nanette Fabray 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.