Miriam Nelson

Known for CrewBorn 1922-09-21Died 2018-08-12

Miriam Lois Frankel was born in Chicago on Sept. 21, 1919, the only child of Daniel Frankel, a salesman who later produced nightclub shows, and Miriam Elizabeth (Bly) Frankel, a seamstress who went on to a show-business wardrobe department career. At 19 she made her Broadway debut, in Sing Out the News (1938), a musical revue, with June Allyson, whose songs included Sing Ho for Private Enterprise. In 1941, two weeks after Pearl Harbor, she married Gene Nelson, a fellow dancer and actor. They moved to Los Angeles, and good luck followed. Having lunch at Paramount one day with a friend, she ran into a New York pal and came home with a seven-year acting-dancing contract. Ms. Nelson’s onscreen appearances included Lady in the Dark (1944), a straight acting role as Edward G. Robinson’s secretary in Double Indemnity (1944) and versatile dance work in Duffy’s Tavern (1945). After the Nelsons divorced in 1956, she took up choreography full time. Her television projects included The Red Skelton Hour, Father Knows Best, The Lucy Show, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. Ms. Nelson’s first credited big-screen choreography was on Blake Edwards’s He Laughed Last (1956), a crime comedy about a chorus girl. Her final screen credit was Out of the Cold, a romantic drama starring Keith Carradine, released on DVD in 2001.Read more

Movies & web series

The Third Girl from the Left

The Two Lives of Carol Letner

Darcey Bussell: Looking for Audrey

Breakfast at Tiffany's: The Making of a Classic

Trouble Comes to Town

Double Indemnity

He Laughed Last

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Cactus Flower

Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women

The Lucy Show

Alice in Wonderland

Ike

Hail the Conquering Hero

Out of the Cold

The Great Bank Robbery

I'd Rather Be Rich

Bring Your Smile Along

Cat Ballou

High Time

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Hawaii

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Public Pigeon No. 1

Cover Girl

A New Kind of Love

Duffy's Tavern

Tea for Two

Sunset

Lullaby of Broadway

Masquerade in Mexico

Murderers' Row

Kitty

The Restless Breed

Visit to a Small Planet

Let's Face It

I'll Take Sweden

Honeymoon Hotel

The Young Lovers

A Golightly Gathering

The Stan Freberg Federal Budget Review