Nanette Fabray - Television and Film

Television and Film

In the mid-1940s, Fabray worked regularly for David Sarnoff and NBC on a variety of programs in the Los Angeles area. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she made her first high-profile national television appearances performing on a number of variety programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show, Texaco Star Theater, and The Arthur Murray Party. She also appeared on Your Show of Shows as a guest star opposite Sid Caesar. She appeared as a regular on Caesar's Hour from 1954–1956, winning three Emmys. Fabray left the show after a misunderstanding when her business manager, unbeknown to her, made unreasonable demands for her third season contract. Fabray and Caesar did not reconcile until years later.

Fabray appeared as the mother of the main character on 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. She also made appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, Burke's Law, Love, American Style, Maude, The Love Boat, What's My Line?, and Murder, She Wrote. Her brief, eponymously-titled 1961 comedy series was cancelled after 13 episodes. On the PBS program Pioneers of Television: Sitcoms, Mary Tyler Moore credited Fabray with inspiring her trademark comedic crying technique.

In 1953, Fabray played her most well-known screen role as a Betty Comden-like playwright in MGM's The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan. The film featured Fabray, Astaire, and Buchanan performing the classic musical number "Triplets", which was included in That's Entertainment Part II. Additional film credits include The Subterraneans (1960), The Happy Ending (1969), Harper Valley PTA (1978), Amy (1981), and Teresa's Tattoo (1994).

Fabray's most recent work was in 2007, when she appeared in The Damsel Dialogues, an original revue by composer Dick de Benedictus, with direction/choreography by Miriam Nelson. The show, which was performed at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, California, focused on women's issues with life, love, loss, and the workplace.