Biography

Mitzi Mayfair was during the 30s and 40s a tap-dancer on Broadway. Her shows included "The Show Is On", and "Take a Chance". After Eleanor Powell's breakdown in January 1936, she replaced Miss Powell in "At Home Abroad". Mitzi Mayfair's film work was small, only co-starring in Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) and a few Vitaphone Shorts.
- IMDb mini biography by: Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Mitzi Mayfair was born Juanita Emylyn Pique on June 6, 1914, in Fulton, Kentucky. Her grandfather was a minister and she attended church every Sunday. Mitzi started dancing when she was a child. Although she never took a lesson, a local theatrical producer cast her in a kiddie review. Vaudevillian Gus Edwards saw Mitzi in the show and asked her to go on tour. At age 15, she danced in the short film Manhattan Serenade. Mitzi made a few more Vitaphone shorts but she preferred to be on the stage. By 1936, she was one of the highest-paid vaudeville performers in the country. Her specialty was kicking her leg up to touch the back of her head. Mitzi appeared in several Broadway shows including "The Ziegfeld Follies" and "Take A Chance", with Ethel Merman.

On March 12, 1938 she married Albert Hoffmann, vice-president of the Hoffman beverage company. The couple had a tumultuous marriage and they separated a few years later. During World War II, she joined Kay Francis, Carole Landis, and Martha Raye on a four-month USO tour to entertain the troops. When their experiences were made into the movie Four Jills in a Jeep (1944), Mitzi played herself. Although she wasn't a trained actress her performance received good reviews.

Dancer Irene Castle wanted Mitzi to play her in a film but the studio gave the part to Ginger Rogers, instead. In 1943, Mitzi filed for bankruptcy claiming that she only had $200 in assets. The following year she married Charles Henderson, a music executive from 20th Century Fox. Soon after she retired from Hollywood to become a full-time housewife. She loved to cook and play chess. Mitzi divorced her husband and married Fred Cook in 1963. Sadly in October of 1970 Mitzi was assaulted and robbed in her Sacramento home. Soon after she and her husband moved to Tucson, Arizona. She died in May 1976 at the age of 61. She is buried at East Lawn Palms Cemetery in Tucson.
- IMDb mini biography by: Elizabeth Ann