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August 16, 2022 6:38 AM

Virginia "Frozen Face" O'Brien (previously) sang in a unique deadpan style in MGM musicals. Her style was apparently originally born out of stage fright, but the audience found it hilarious. Watch Rockabye Baby, Did I Get Stinkin’ at the Savoy, Say That We’re Sweethearts Again, In a Little Spanish Town and Salome.
posted by TheophileEscargot (10 comments total)

Glad to see a new FPP, as the one from years earlier is full of now-dead links. On the other hand, that first link tells us with the subhead and opening sentence that’s her centenary was in 2019 and that in 1939, she was seventeen.

That seems a little off, but of course, I am not a botanist.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:39 AM on August 16, 2022

Wow! She really swung that Swing
when she sang that thing
I mean that she's a gal who had the gift for syncopated
song
posted by bartleby at 7:44 AM on August 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Tighter than a mouse's ear!
posted by chavenet at 8:25 AM on August 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

So delightful! I love old, obscure movie musicals. They're always chock full of wonderful, quirky performers like Virginia.
posted by merriment at 8:34 AM on August 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

Love it. I've watched Rockabye Baby a few times to really understand the screwball-ness of the number while O'Brien doesn't move an inch. It's all in the eyes... which you can't stop watching.

Watch the tiny little furrow at 0:32. So subtle, but good for a laugh.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:15 AM on August 16, 2022

Her choreography in Salome kills me, especially the little yawn gesture when she's holding the last note.
posted by signal at 1:34 PM on August 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

And Aubrey Plaza continues the tradition.
posted by zaixfeep at 1:51 PM on August 16, 2022

That style of music is very much Not My Thing but she had a fun gimmick and holy cow was she beautiful.

This post reminds me of a singer with kind of the opposite shtick, that she sang happy songs with this cartoonishly glum, kind of Debbie Downer-ish voice. I heard her once or twice on old time radio shows. She was introduced like this wacky character the audience was supposed to know already, and then she'd sing these upbeat numbers in this kind of awful, sad sack voice. The only song I remember was Everybody's Got a Laughing Place from Song of the South, so she was presumably a late '40s act. I've wondered about her whole deal often enough that I've even thought about blowing an Ask on it. Would anybody have any idea who the heck I'm talking about?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:13 PM on August 16, 2022

Sort of a deadpan precursor to both Keely Smith and Cher...
posted by jim in austin at 3:07 PM on August 16, 2022

See also Keely Smith who worked with the irrepressible Louis Prima.
posted by blob at 8:34 PM on August 16, 2022