LOS ANGELES - Ann Miller, the raven-haired, long-legged actress and dancer whose machine-gun taps won her stardom during the golden age of movie musicals, died Thursday of lung cancer. She was 81.
Miller died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Esme Chandlee, her longtime friend and former publicist.
A onetime childhood dance prodigy, she reached the peak of her film career at MGM in the late 1940s and early '50s with "On the Town," "Easter Parade" and "Kiss Me Kate."
She remained a dazzling tapper in her 60s and earned millions on Broadway and touring with Mickey Rooney (news) in "Sugar Babies," a razzmatazz tribute to the era of burlesque.
"At MGM, I always played the second feminine lead; I was never the star in films," she once recalled. "I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl. I never really had my big moment on the screen.
Picked by 80s Renegade.