Virginia O'Brien (born April 18, 1919 in Los Angeles, died January 16, 2001), was a popular American singer and actress known for her comedic roles in MGM musicals of the 1940s. She was highly regarded for her singing style, as well as her beauty.

O'Brien's looks belied the fact that she primarily performed in comedic roles during the height of her formal film career. This was in part due to her intentionally humorous singing style, which involved her singing in a deadpan manner, with no facial expressions and very little movement - reportedly she stumbled upon this "gimmick" by accident during a stage show when she became virtually paralyzed with stage fright before singing a number. The audience found the performance to be hilarious and she was soon hired to repeat this performance in a number of movies beginning in 1940 for which she gained the nicknames "Frozen Face" and "Miss Ice Glacier" among others. It should be noted that when she wasn't singing, her acting style was just as emotive as other actresses, and she didn't always employ her gimmick when singing as evidenced by her performance in the excerpt from Show Boat in the 1946 film Till the Clouds Roll By.

Among the films she appeared in during her time at MGM were The Big Store (1941) with the Marx Brothers, Ship Ahoy (1942) with Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton, Thousands Cheer (in which she endured ribbing from Mickey Rooney about her singing style), Du Barry Was a Lady (with Skelton and Lucille Ball), The Harvey Girls (with Judy Garland) and Ziegfeld Follies. After appearing once again with Red Skelton in 1947's, Merton of the Movies, and after a guest appearance the following year in the short Musical Merry-Go-Round, O'Brien was suddenly dropped from her MGM film contract and she moved into television and back to live performances.

She made two film appearances after this: Francis in the Navy and the 1976 Walt Disney Studios comedy, Gus. In 1984 she created a cabaret act saluting her career with MGM and this was recorded at the Masquer's Club in Hollywood, subsequently released as a Compact Disc and then with iTunes.

She continued to perform well into the 1980s with both a one-woman show and a production of Show Boat. She also continued to perform in the 1990s with the Palm Spring Follies.

Filmography

Title	Year	Character
Gus	1976	Reporter
Francis in the Navy	1955	Nurse Kittredge
Musical Merry-Go-Round	1948	(Herself) Specialty Singer
Merton of the Movies	1947	Phyllis Montague
The Show-Off	1946	Hortense
Till the Clouds Roll By	1946	Ellie Mae in 'Show Boat'/Specialty Singer
Ziegfeld Follies	1946	Specialty Singer
The Harvey Girls	1946	Alma from Ohio
Two Girls and a Sailor	1944	(Herself) Specialty Singer
Meet the People	1944	"Woodpecker" Peg
Thousands Cheer	1943	(Herself) Specialty Singer
Du Barry Was a Lady	1943	Ginny
Panama Hattie	1942	Flo Foster
Ship Ahoy	1942	Fran Evans
Lady Be Good	1941	Lull
Ringside Maisie	1941	(Herself) Specialty Singer
The Big Store	1941	Kitty
Hullabaloo	1940	Virginia Ferris
Sky Murder	1940	Lucille LaVonne (uncredited)

External links

• Virginia O'Brien at the Internet Movie Database
• Van Neste, Dan. ""Virginia O'Brien, The Diva of Deadpan"" Classic Images January 1999.