Forever Mortal...

Forever Mortal — the Enduring Film Career of Dancer Ivy Day

Hollywood has its many ghost stories: an ethereal Marilyn Monroe sashaying through the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel; John Belushi’s shadow figure seen lurking about Chateau Marmont, a 1929 gothic-style hotel and bungalows where he OD’d on a lethal mixture of heroin and cocaine, but dancer Ivy Day’s story may be the most unusual paranormal occurrence in moviedom lore. And the most verifiable.

Serious film buffs, keen on every nuance, focus on bloopers that should have been left on the proverbial cutting-room floor--a jet flyover over in a “Gladiator” scene for example, (the movie ironically won the Oscar for the best visual effects), continuity screw-ups, botched dialogue. It was a sharp-eyed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archivist whose job was to preserve a century of celluloid musicals who noticed that the name Ivy Day was listed in the end credits over and over again and was gobsmacked by her long career. He took notes and reconstructed her resume, highlighted here:

Duck Soup (Paramount, 1933): Ivy’s film debut, a rollicking welcome to Hollywoodland plucked from an open cattle-call to perform with the Marx Brothers. Ivy was cast in the outlandish, Busby Berkeley-inspired big production number spoof about a country called Freedonia celebrating its upcoming armed conflict with neighboring enemy Sylvania:  “To war! To war! To war we got to go. With a hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-ho!” Ivy is the  platinum blonde, stage left, in the background behind Groucho, as the zany quartet waxes melodically:

“They got guns. We got guns, 

All God’s chillun got guns!

I’m gonna walk all over the battlefield,

Cause all God’s chillun got guns!”

Roman Scandals (Samuel Goldwyn, 1933): Ivy’s chance to work with the real Busby Berkeley, the legendary film musical choreographer, and also with the wildly popular entertainer, Eddie Cantor. She was credited as one of the “Goldwyn Girls” alongside future stars Paulette Goddard and Lucille Ball and was featured in several scenes with them.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (Warner Brothers, 1942): The biographical musical about George M. Cohan, dubbed, “The Man Who Owned Broadway.” It starred Joan Leslie opposite James Cagney. Ivy was featured in the climatic title song-and-dance number—she’s the performer in the Statue of Liberty costume.

Guys and Dolls (Samuel Goldwyn, 1955): Ivy teams up with her old production company—22 years later! A lyrical ode to gambling, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, and Frank Sinatra, the film places Ivy in two dance numbers, and she is featured in a press release photo of Brando, looking dapper in a powder-blue suit and matching fedora surrounded by six beautiful “dolls”.  She’s the beauty with her hand on his right shoulder.

Funny Face (Paramount, 1957): Ivy’s return to the studio where she caught her first break 24 years before. In this film starring Audrey Hepburn, she participated in the ensemble performance of “Bonjour, Paris!” and appeared as an extra in the Quality magazine office scenes  (blonde secretary at the third desk).

Grease (Paramount, 1978): The box-office blockbuster starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Ivy is cast as one of the “Pink Ladies,” a group of girls who date the “T-birds.”

Chicago (Miramax, 2002): The winner of six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, starred Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah. In her 1920s “Jazz Age” costumes, Ivy looked remarkably similar to her debut Marx Brothers film 69 years before!

Hairspray (New Line Cinema, 2007): A John Waters romp, Ivy again rubbed dance shoes with John Travolta and is featured in the number, “The New Girl in Town.” She is distinguishable only by her facial features—Waters, satirizing her trademark  light blonde bob, put her in an oversized, yellow bouffant foam-rubber wig.

La La Land (Lionsgate, 2016): an appropriate title considering Ivy’s staying power, the movie won seven Golden Globe awards, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. Lead Emma Stone won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Ivy is featured in the climactic restaurant scene where former lovers Mia (Stone) and Sebastin (Ryan Gosling) get a relational “do-over” in a suspended reality.  Suspended reality—talk about art imitating life. 

Wicked (Universal Pictures, 2024): the critically and commercially successful re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz film grossed $758.8 million worldwide on a $150 million budget and was listed as one of the best musical films of the 21st century.    Ivy plays one of the many background performers in the catchy number,  “One Short Day”, the song that marks Elphaba and Glinda’s arrival in the Emerald City.  Ivy, now 92, retained her strength stamina, balance and poise—and didn’t look a day over 19.

Stunned by the dancer’s longevity, the archivist began investigating this strange phenomenon, and as a long shot started with a microfiche stroll through Daily Variety magazines, the show-biz bible that features entertainment news, movie reviews, box office results, production charts, film calendars, and a little bit of gossip.  He starting with the first year of publication, 1933—and got lucky early:

The issue dated February 19 had this blurb on page 2, his first big lead:  “Tyrone Power was spotted last evening at the Brown Derby dining with a leggy, blonde bombshell identified as the up-and-coming song-and-dance starlet Ivy Day who has just recently moved to Tinsel Town from Schenectady, New York.  

With that to go on, on a lark, he contacted the “Times-Union” newspaper, an Albany daily serving a four-county area in western New York. Did they, by chance, happen to have any human-interest stories in their archives about a young woman from Schenectady who dreamed of dancing in the movies, circa the early 1930s?  If so, could they please send him photo copies in the included return envelope?

He was shocked to have received three clippings one month later. The first, dated Valentine’s Day, 1933, was a puff piece about the love spread by the good folks in the area. Even though money was  tight after the stock market crash, they held raffles and bake sales to help a talented local girl named Irene Davis with a one-way bus ticket to Los Ángeles and a little spending money to help tie her over until she found work in pictures. 

The photo accompanying the story showed the plain-Jane looking young thing, pimpled and dimpled, with long auburn hair, waving good-bye at the depot, suitcase in hand, her smile as wide and bright as the bus’s chrome bumper. Shocking and with no rational explanation, the Hollywood hopeful looked identical to the film ingenue stripped of her costume, make-up, and hair bleach.  

The second story dated four days later reported that the Greyhound delivering Irene to LA  had skidded off an icy Route 66, rolled into a ditch, and was incinerated just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, in the pre-dawn hours of February 17.  She was among the six passengers roasted alive. The paper rued, “Perhaps her untimely death was our fault for sending her off to California.”

The third was Irene’s obit that concluded:  “Inspired by her idol Jean Harlow, Irene said she longed to have a career on the silver screen so that she could be “forever mortal” and had already chosen the stage name Ivy Day.”

Skeptical?   Watch the movies mentioned, paying extra attention to the dancer pointed out, then the names of the casts and crews as they scroll by.  They don’t call it Hollyweird for nothin’.

By CraigE

From: United States