Natalie Wood sings "Tonight" on Youtube- Page 2

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:10am

If Marni Nixon had dubbed Wood's last note in LITTLE LAMB, it would have sounded better. I think Wood did all her own singing in GYPSY.

[marknyc]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:11am

I've uploaded another clip that clearly uses some of Marni's voice.

I'm told Natalie sings only one line here:

"Make of our lives, one life. Day after day, one life."

and that the rest is Marni.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mob7H6YUhB4 Updated On: 8/20/08 at 12:11 AM

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:11am

I agree.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:16am

I can tell Moreno has some disdain towards Natalie Wood. Even in interviews she does today you can tell that she doesn't have a high opinion of her.
Richard Breymer has also talked about Wood being a bit stand-offish and arrogant, so I always figured that is why Moreno disliked her.
And didn't Marni Nixon dub Rita Moreno during "A Boy Like That"? I know that Moreno was really upset about that and says that it detracted from the way her performance comes off during that number.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:20am

Betty Wand dubbed "A Boy Like that" - she also dubbed all of Leslie Caron in GIGI - another vocal performance that would be interesting to match with the original film.

[BradMajors]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:30am

Beymer and Wood didn't get along. I think he uses the word aloof to describe her behavior on the set of the film. I don't think anyone's ever described her as being arrogant. Tony Mordente, an original broadway cast member who was married to Chita Rivera at the time was in the film as "Action". Jerome Robbins personally assigned him to look after Natalie and help her with her dancing, etc. and he actually became very close to her and RJ Wagner while they were filming.

He explained she was extremely nervous about the whole project and focused all her energy in trying to get it right. It was her first big musical and she wanted to do right by the material and in the process her actions came off as aloof to the rest of the cast members. I think she may even have been a little intimidated, you have to remember many of the film's cast members were already seasoned WSS cast members from many different productions of the show. She may have been overwhelmed.
Mordente had nothing but nice things to say about her and he spent the most time with her out of anyone.

Howard Jeffrey, Jerome Robbins' assistant choreographer and Robbins' "right hand man" also took Natalie under his wing and they became life long friends as well.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:34am

It's great to be able to hear things like Natalie's singing in WSS and Audrey's in My Fair Lady, but in the end, it makes me so glad that the vocals were dubbed. Marni Nixon's voice is just flawless.

[BradMajors]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 12:35am

I would love for someone, marknyc are you reading this? To link Leslie Caron's musical numbers from "Gigi" with her original vocal tracks. I know they're available on the extended soundtrack released a few years ago.

[marknyc]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 3:08am

More projects, hmmm? Well, I do have some other irons in the fire, so we'll see. Just added a brief clip of Richard Beymer singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6fh0tGmqHI

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 11:48am

I want to say I read that Nixon dubbed part of little lamb in a bigoraphy from the 80s called "Natalie and RJ." It could very well not be true, though.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 11:54am

They should have just kept Natalie Wood's vocals, but then again, that was a different time, where dubbing was a natural occurrence.

I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm glad Richard Beymer was dubbed.

[marknyc]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 4:49pm

Listening to the recording of "Tonight" again - which I'm convinced is a blend of Marni and Natalie (as is "One Hand, One Heart") - it seems clear to me that Saul Chaplin made an honest effort to use her voice. As you can tell, I'm a film and video editor, so I know what they went through - pulling out her bad notes, replacing them with Marni - until the recording became more and more Marni and less and less Natalie.

I can just see Chaplin finally throwing up his hands and saying, "I give up! Bring Marni back and let's just replace it all."

To those who say Natalie's voice should have been used: I just don't know what you're hearing. Listen to her on the words in caps: "nothing else but you EVER" "just a world is a STAR, TONIGHT" and the last "TONIGHT" - painful, and she would have been butchered by the critics had her voice been used.

[BradMajors]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 5:34pm

I have to re-listen I keep on getting sidetracked at how beautiful she was that all sound escapes my ears.

[je veux te voir2]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 10:31pm

geez. I knew Natalie Wood couldn't sing but...wow.

[ToplessCocoWantsFame]

Posted: 8/21/08 at 4:41am

michelle pfeiffer anyone?

[Amalia Balash]

Posted: 8/21/08 at 8:03am

Thanks so much for the clips and the fascinating discussion.

Why did Marni Nixon never have an onscreen singing career other than her appearance in the Sound of Music? Physical appearance, lack of acting ability, politics?

Of the singers that Marni ghosted for, I know that Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn's actual singing made it to the film versions of Gypsy and Funny Face respectively -- did Deborah Kerr ever have her vocals recorded?

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 12:53pm

"I've also assumed that Moreno's harshness may have partially stemmed from the fact that Natalie Wood wasn't hispanic."

Isn't it a little bit hypocritical for her to have contempt for Wood for that considering the role she played in The King and I?

Updated On: 12/26/08 at 12:53 PM

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 1:11pm

And didn't Marni Nixon dub Rita Moreno during "A Boy Like That"?

Betty Wand dubbed Moreno for "A Boy Like That," as Michael Bennett said (in an exaggerated Mexican accent that Moreno hated), but Marni dubbed Moreno for the last bit of the "Quintet," because Moreno was sick the day they recorded that.

In the "Quintet," Marni is singing two parts.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 1:55pm

Amalia Balash wrote, "Of the singers that Marni ghosted for, I know that Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn's actual singing made it to the film versions of Gypsy and Funny Face respectively -- did Deborah Kerr ever have her vocals recorded?"

Unlike Wood and Moreno, Kerr was under no illusions about her singing and worked closely with Nixon from the beginning so that the transition from her speaking voice to Nixon's singing voice would be as seamless as possible. IIRC, the studio wanted to keep it secret that Kerr had been dubbed, but Kerr would have none of it and gave credit to Nixon at the first opportunity.

I think the only vocals of Kerr that were recorded was the bits she did of "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" That, of course, was released on the soundtrack LP (and the later CD) but never made it into the finished film. As you probably know, it was apparently filmed, but the last I heard no one can find it and it's yet to show up on a DVD release.

PhyllisRogersStone wrote, "And was it really technically impossible to mix the notes from different takes back then?"

I don't think it should have been. Back in the early 1950s, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf dubbed the high Cs for the aging Kirsten Flagstad on the Furtwängler recording of Tristan und Isolde, a fact that unfortunately became public knowledge not long after the recording was issued, much to Flagstad's chagrin. (And Flagstad did still have a high C, but perhaps it wasn't sounding so great when the recording was being made.)

Of course, that recording was mono and it was just a few isolated notes. If might have been harder to do something like that in stereo and make it sound unnoticeable and it probably would have had to be more than a few isolated notes.

[Usnavi]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 2:15pm

i was just watching the film hollywood singing and dancing: a musical history and george chakiris shot down all of the criticism of wood's dubbing in west side story.

he stated: "some people say: 'well, it really wasn't her voice'. well, who cares? it was her performance there was only one natalie wood."
Updated On: 12/26/08 at 02:15 PM

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 1:34pm

I <3 dubbing history.

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 2:09pm

My favorite bit of dubbing history is the Rocky debacle in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Peter Hinwood's voice was not used, he was dubbed over by an unnamed vocal performer, and this dubbing was used on all recordings... until the recent "Absolute Treasures" nearly-complete soundtrack, when (from what I can tell), Hinwood's original vocals were used. But his voice is uncredited, billed only as "Rocky," possibly due to his disdain for the film and desire to distance himself from it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 2:30pm

Such a shame all those videos were taken down. Ah, well.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 2:38pm

Recently I went to the "official" WEST SIDE STORY site and was somewhat amazed (and disappointed) by a statement that appeared in "the dubbers" section. I've always loved Wood's performance as Maria and every time I saw the film was extremely moved by Wood's line reading of her final lines when she shouts "Don't you touch him!". It never failed to give me goose bumps. I knew Natalie's singing voice was dubbed by Nixon but never read this before (quote):

(In fact, Nixon even dubbed Wood’s speaking voice at the very end: "Don’t you touch him!" Te adoro, Anton.")

I find this really hard to believe since it sounds so much like Natalie's voice. Was Nixon really that good in mimicking Wood's speaking voice too? Anyone else ever hear this discussed before other then on this site? If you have please chime in. Here's the site page below that also claims Wood did all her singing in GYPSY (whether it's an accurate statement or not I have no idea):

http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_factsheet.php

And to answer a previous poster's question regarding why Marni Nixon never had a career other than her dubbing services. Many moons ago I saw Marni in an original musical aimed for Broadway titled THE GENIUS FARM. It costarred Johnny Johnston from A TREE GROES IN BROOKLYN. It dealt with Nixon's character running a fat farm in upstate New York for overweight women. It was a very strange show, the music unimpressive and needless to say never went to Broadway. Nixon was plump herself at the time (her main costume was a large man's white shirt and black tights), sang just fine but had very little stage presence. I wouldn't be surprised though if she appeared in her key dubbing roles in summer stock though I have no knowledge of this.

[The Other One]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 3:32pm

I am pretty sure Marni Nixon played Eliza Doolittle live on stage in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. Marni does have a technically flawless voice, but if you listen to the Gershwin album she recorded you will hear that she doesn't have a distinctive way with lyrics or interpretative abilities. I'm sure this has something to do with why she herself never had much of a career as a musical actress.

A few years ago I heard an interview with Marni Nixon on NPR (I think with Leonard Lopate) and she said Natalie always knew that one of the songs was too difficult for her and that it would have to be dubbed. Marni could not remember if it was I Have A Love or One Hand, One Heart.

Natalie does all of her own singing, in her perfectly pleasant when unchallenged voice, in Gypsy, Penelope and The Affair. She is understandably dubbed in West Side Story, The Great Race (apparently at Mancini's insistence) and Inside Daisy Clover, where a great voice is required. Outtakes of her singing You're Gonna Hear From Me and The Circus Is A Wacky World are a lot closer to the mark than her WSS takes, but she still couldn't manage the higher, brassier notes, and the discrepancy between her voice and Jackie Ward's in the blended recordings was just too obvious. Her outtakes from that film were a hell of a lot more passionate than the final tracks sung by Jackie Ward, however.



Updated On: 12/22/13 at 03:32 PM