30. Her Moves Were Ahead Of Their Time
The Belle of New York was one of the first films that used a conceit where the dancers seemingly had no gravity dragging them down and thus appeared to float on air. It was a tricky concept at the time, and one that only a very technically skilled dancer like Vera-Ellen could handle.
Accordingly, Vera-Ellen got second-billing next to her co-star Fred Astaire, and it represented a huge opportunity. It was just an opportunity that didn’t work out.
31. She Had A Flop
Unfortunately, The Belle of New York was a critical and commercial failure, in part because of its avant-garde dance sequences. Astaire, who was notoriously critical of his own dancing, would later defy popular opinion and say they were some of his best, but this didn’t stop the film from losing well over a million dollars for the studio.
Then again, their days on set weren’t without tension.
32. She Tried To Change Her Face
Vera-Ellen was a consummate professional, but her regimented life had also grown her insecure self-obsession and produced near-constant habits. Alarmingly, her Belle of New York co-star Astaire noticed that, apparently in order to accentuate her cheekbones, she would poke at her cheeks all day long while working with him.
But, in fairness, all of this was the exact image Vera-Ellen wanted.
33. She Was Proud Of Herself
While it’s true that Vera-Ellen had succumbed to the studio’s idea of what a perfect body was, it’s also true that during these years, she claimed a lighter weight helped her artistry, better giving her the ability to “float” in her dance routines. For better or worse, she loved that “my feet scarcely seem to touch the ground when I dance”.
Vera-Ellen was, by any measure, an incredible dancer, and her next film would be her most famous. Sadly, it would also be her most infamous.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
34. She Was In A Christmas Classic
In 1954, Vera-Ellen starred alongside Danny Kaye once more, accompanied by Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby, in White Christmas. Though the film had a troubled production history—Fred Astaire was initially pegged for Danny Kaye’s role, and Kaye came to set with little preparation—it became the highest-grossing film of the year, turning Vera-Ellen and the rest of the cast into instant Christmas icons.
Vera-Ellen’s work in the film is at a gold standard to anyone who watches…but it’s not what people noticed at the time.
35. She Wore A Suspicious Item
When White Christmas came out, some people in Hollywood commented that Vera-Ellen’s frame was now too fragile-looking, proving that Vera-Ellen really couldn’t please the studios or their audiences no matter what she did.
More than that, this figure, coupled with her consistently high-necked costumes, started a long-standing fan conspiracy theory.
36. They Said She Was Hiding Something
According to the rumor, White Christmas’s costume designer Edith Head had purposely made practically all of Vera-Ellen’s costumes with high necks because the actress’s decolletage had been ravaged by her years of malnutrition, and was now aged beyond Vera-Ellen’s years. This is a myth—but it doesn’t mean it was far from the truth.
37. Photos Disprove The Theory
There are a host of photographs of Vera-Ellen after she filmed White Christmas wearing low necklines that bared her neck, and there’s no evidence of any premature aging. In 1957’s Let’s Be Happy, her character even wears a low-necked costume, albeit just once in the film, without any glimpse of damage. Still, as we’ll see, that’s only half the story.
38. She Remarried
The same year that White Christmas came out, Vera-Ellen married for the second time, this time to oil man Victor Rothschild. It was, in some ways, an extremely fortuitous union: After all, Rothschild was a millionaire, and after years of toiling in Hollywood, Vera-Ellen could now settle down into retirement. She just didn’t want to.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
39. She Didn’t Stop
If there was one thing Vera-Ellen knew how to do, it was work, so Hollywood was surprised when it took her a full three years to follow up White Christmas with Let’s Be Happy, even as she reportedly won the role over her old co-star Rosemary Clooney. However, according to Vera-Ellen herself, this hiatus wasn’t by choice.
Bud Fraker, for Paramount Pictures, Wikimedia Commons
40. She Lost Out On A Role
According to Vera-Ellen, she had very much wanted an undisclosed part during this period, only to find out that she had been rejected, and for alarming reasons. The studio thought she was, once more, too thin, and “the producer preferred an actress with more curves”. This all turned into a downward trend.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
41. Hollywood Forgot About Her
Besides her new millionaire husband at home and the controversy around her figure, Vera-Ellen had other factors working against her career. Namely, studios had stopped making so many musicals but at the same time didn’t trust Vera-Ellen to hold up an acting-only role, and often skipped considering her for those parts.
Once again, Vera-Ellen wasn’t enough, but she kept going.
42. She Kept Trying
As film work dried up, Vera-Ellen turned more and more to television work; even if she didn’t need the money after her marriage, her career remained paramount. She frequently went on variety programming throughout the 1950s, and was on an episode of The Perry Como Show and The Dinah Shore Show. Eventually, though, even Vera-Ellen had to give up.
43. She Had To Surrender
The late 1950s were some of the last screen appearances Vera-Ellen ever made. Never overly social, she also wasn’t running rampant on the Hollywood party scene, and appears to have decided to spend most of her time on her husband and their marriage in this period.
In 1963, when Vera-Ellen was in her 40s, there was a surprising development on that front.
44. She Had A Baby Girl
In 1963, Vera-Ellen and her husband Victor Rothschild had their first and only child together, Victoria Rothschild. Vera-Ellen, with little of her career left to focus on and knowing her prime days behind her, doted on her baby over the next weeks and months. Until, that is, her worst nightmare struck.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
45. She Went Through A Horror Story
When she was just three months old, little Victoria suffered from the mysterious SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and perished. The toll this took on Vera-Ellen was unlike anything she experienced: where she had been elusive before she now became utterly reclusive, retreating almost entirely from public life. More consequences were to come.
46. Her Marriage Fell Apart
There were so many things that Vera-Ellen could grin and bear, but the death of her child was beyond the pale. At the time of Victoria’s passing, Vera-Ellen had been married to Victor Rothschild for nearly a decade, but they made it barely three more years without their daughter, officially divorcing in 1966.
Vera-Ellen spent her later years trying to hold on to everything she had left.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
47. She Never Stopped Training
Vera-Ellen was a fundamentally physical person, and according to a niece, she “never stopped taking dance classes” or moving her body. In fact, when she suffered from a mild stroke, Vera-Ellen used a swimming program to recover some of her function. Only, none of this helped the still swirling rumors.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
48. Her Legacy Is Complicated
The whispers around the state of Vera-Ellen’s neck in White Christmas, and the state of her physical health, had only grown more prominent in the intervening years, often distracting from Vera-Ellen’s legacy as a masterful and beautiful dancer.
The truth is, while we can piece together her various habits, it’s impossible and unwise to diagnose her, especially since family members and personal friends have almost all either denied or remained silent on the matter. Or, almost silent.
49. She Had Something To Hide
Although Vera-Ellen’s neck hadn’t prematurely aged in White Christmas and thus didn’t strictly need to be covered up, her second husband Victor Rothschild once commented that, “She was easy to live with apart from not liking high collars”. Since the White Christmas costumes weren’t, then, a preference for Vera, they likely were deliberate on the part of Edith Head.
So, why have them? It likely stemmed from the same issues: to obscure how slim her upper body was at the time, if not to obscure her neck.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
50. She Died Young
In the end, Vera-Ellen spent too little time on the stage, and too little time in life. When she was only 60 years old, she got fatally sick with ovarian cancer, passing in Los Angeles on August 30, 1981. Nonetheless, her legacy, even with all its scandal, lives on in all the movies she ever made, and all the numbers she ever nailed.
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