GISÈLE
MacKENZIE
January 10, 1927 - September 5, 2003
Gisele MacKenzie, the Canadian - born
singer - actress who was a regular on the
popular 1950s television musical show
“Your Hit Parade” and starred in her own
short-lived NBC variety series, has died.
She was 76.
MacKenzie, who was once known as Canada’s
First Lady of Song, died Friday in
Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in
Burbank after a long battle with colon
cancer, said her daughter, Gigi Downs.
MacKenzie rose to national attention on
“Your Hit Parade.” During her years on the
weekly show, from 1953 to 1957, she joined
such vocalists as Snooky Lanson, Russell
Arms and Dorothy Collins in singing the
seven most popular songs in America each
week.
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Although most of the show’s singers were
recording artists, MacKenzie was the only
one to ever have a big enough hit to
appear in the show’s top seven while she
was a regular: “Hard to Get” in 1955.
In 1957, she starred in her own NBC
musical variety program, “The Gisele
MacKenzie Show,” which lasted six months.
She later was a regular on “The Sid Caesar
Show,” a 1963 ABC comedy-variety show.
“She was such a lovely lady,” Caesar told
The Times on Friday. “She was a
wonderfully, wonderfully talented woman.
She was a great singer and a great
musician and had a great sense of humor.”
On his show, Caesar said, “She sang,
played the violin, worked in the sketches
-- she did everything.”
Actress Beverly Garland, a close friend of
MacKenzie, said she was an incredible
performer. “The wonderful thing about
Gisele was she could sing no matter where
she was,” Garland said Friday. “She didn’t
have to have a piano, she didn’t have to
have a violin or anything. She was on key
and so brilliant that it just blew your
mind. She had this wonderful, wonderful
gift, and she’ll be a real loss to the
music world and the entertainment world.”
The daughter of a Winnipeg doctor, she was
born Jan. 10, 1927. MacKenzie -- a family
name that she adopted after coming to
Hollywood in 1951 -- inherited her musical
talent from her mother, who played piano
and organ. As a child, MacKenzie began
singing and playing the piano and violin
at an early age. She gave her first public
recital as a violinist at a hotel in
Winnipeg and studied at the Royal
Conservatory in Toronto.
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While entertaining troops during World War
II, she met Robert Shuttleworth, a
lieutenant who was a bandleader in the
Royal Canadian Navy. After the war, he
hired her as a violinist, pianist and
vocalist with his civilian band.
Shuttleworth became MacKenzie’s first
manager and they later married and
divorced. She also was married to Robert
Klein, a businessman, whom she also
divorced.
Although Shuttleworth urged her to
concentrate on her singing, MacKenzie was
not sure whether she wanted to be an
instrumentalist or a singer until the day
someone stole her violin.
“I figured that was a pretty good sign
that I should be a singer,” she once
recalled.
In 1946, her rich contralto singing voice
caught the attention of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corp., which resulted in her
own quarter-hour radio show, “Meet
Gisele.”
By 1951, she was in Hollywood doing radio
guest spots with Edgar Bergen and Morton
Downey before becoming a regular on Bob
Crosby’s “Club 15” show and then as
featured singer on “The Mario Lanza Show”
on radio.
An impressed Jack Benny had her join him
on tour during the summers of 1952 and
1953. And the comedian, who became
MacKenzie’s biggest booster, recommended
her for “Your Hit Parade.”
In 1955, MacKenzie made the first of many
appearances on Benny’s weekly television
show; she often performed a violin duet
with him.
“She played the violin and the piano with
a master’s touch, and did one of the best
comedy sketches with Benny I’ve ever
seen,” wrote a critic for the New York
World-Telegram and Sun in 1955.
Over the decades, MacKenzie starred in
numerous regional theater productions of
“Mame”, “Gypsy”, “The King and I”, “Hello,
Dolly!” and other musicals.
She made her dramatic debut in a 1955
“Kraft Television Theatre” production and
also continued to make occasional TV guest
appearances, as well as appearing in
commercials.
Even after MacKenzie began receiving
treatment for cancer, she continued to
make concert appearances, said actress
Jane Kean, a longtime friend.
“And her singing voice was exactly the way
it was in the ‘60s,” Kean said. “She was
just amazing.”
In addition to her daughter, MacKenzie is
survived by a son, Mac Shuttleworth; a
brother, George La Fleche; a sister,
Janine Helzer; and two grandchildren. A
memorial service is pending.
As
published in Los Angeles Times on
September 6, 2003
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