“South Pacific” star Mitzi Gaynor dies at 93

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Mitzi Gaynor, best known for the hit film musical “South Pacific,” has died at age 93, her representatives said Thursday.

An actress, singer and dancer, Gaynor played the lead female role in the 1958 film adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Broadway sensation.

Her performance as Nellie Forbush, a naive U.S. Navy nurse who falls in love with a French expat plantation owner on a remote Pacific island during World War II, earned Gaynor a Golden Globe nomination.

Gaynor “died peacefully of natural causes” in Los Angeles on Thursday, her managers Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda said in an email to AFP.

The film's soundtrack, which featured Gaynor's vocals on songs such as “I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” and “I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy,” spent 31 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart .

Shortly after “South Pacific,” Gaynor retired from the film business because big musicals were going out of fashion in Hollywood.

Gaynor subsequently enjoyed considerable success appearing in Las Vegas shows and Emmy Award-winning television variety specials.

However, she is remembered for her 1950s film musicals, which also included There's No Business Like Show Business, Anything Goes and Les Girls.

Gaynor was born Francesca Mitzi Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago in September 1931, the only child of a Hungarian music director and a vaudeville dancer.

Her husband of 52 years, Jack Bean, died in 2006.