Secret Voices of Hollywood

Hollywood musicals have been loved by generations.

To be able to see those wonderful pictures and wonderful performers...

Magic. That's what the business is about - magic.

In the great musicals, you're so swept up in the story, that

takes you into a kind of a playful, joyous, carefree, poignant place.

But many songs in the most famous musicals

were not sung by the stars themselves.

Their voices were secretly replaced.

She could dance, she could act. It would take something away to say,

"Oh, by the way, she can't sing. We put somebody else's voice in there."

The studios wanted you to believe that Rita Hayworth could sing.

This is the way you made movie musicals - you dubbed.

Some stars were not told that their voices would be removed.

I was even told that she went to the premiere thinking that

she was going to hear her voice, and didn't.

Ultimately, Natalie Wood was furious.

A number of big stars have never forgiven the film studios.

You have to get over stuff like that.

I don't know that I ever really have!

The secret singers were not allowed to go public.

I was scared to death because

I was sure that if I did that, they would never use me again.

For decades, this was the hidden secret behind many

of Hollywood's best-known musicals.

There were seven Von Trapp children in the film

but there were 11 of us in front of the recording mic.

You could say that audiences were cheated or you could

say they got the best of both worlds.

Now the stories of the stars

and their secret singers can be told in full.

# Shall we dance?

# On a bright cloud of music

# Shall we fly? #

It's all... It's all me.

In the late 1920s,

a technological breakthrough revolutionised Hollywood.

October 6th, 1927.

The Warner Brothers bring sound to the movies.

They release The Jazz Singer, starring Broadway idol Al Jolson.

The picture is a sensation,

and Jolson becomes Hollywood's first great musical star.

# ..When you're in love... #

The era of the silent movie was over.

Tinseltown had begun to talk.

It changed everything.

You could now for the first time have movies that sang

and danced and told jokes in a way you never could.

And it took a while for Hollywood to figure out how to do it properly,

but the Hollywood myth-making factory

took the American musical theatre up to another level and of course was

able to send it all around the world.

The plot of an all-time classic movie musical released in 1952

pays homage to how the talkies paved the way for ghost singing.

# Singin' in the rain

# Just singin' in the rain

# What a glorious feeling

# We're happy again... #

Singin' In The Rain is an absolutely fascinating musical

because it's a film about making films.

It's a film about sort of the birth of the sound industry

that's recreating this mythology

of the way in which the musical film was born.

Hold it, Dexter!

Mr Simpson, we're nearly rolling.

-Yeah, well, you can stop rolling at once.

-Huh?!

-Don, Lina...

-HE SHOUTS:

-All right, everybody, save it!

The studio in this story makes silent movies.

The boss is sent into a panic by the success of The Jazz Singer.

Yeah, what's the matter, RF?

The Jazz Singer, that's what's the matter. The Jazz Singer.

# Oh, my darling little mammy Down in Alabamy... #

No, this is no joke, Cosmo, it's a sensation.

-The public is screaming for more.

-More what?

-Talking pictures...

So their latest film is reinvented as a musical.

I told you talking pictures were a menace

but no-one would listen to me.

Don, we're going to put our best feet forward.

We're going to make The Duelling Cavalier into a talking picture!

The musicals' male star is Don Lockwood, played by Gene Kelly.

But Lockwood's glamorous co-star Lina Lamont -

played by Jean Hagen - has a voice that would strip wallpaper.

So Lamont is sent for an elocution lesson.

She comes into this scene with Kathleen Freeman, who says to her,

"All right, dear, you know, let's...let's get started."

Tah-tay-tee-toe-too.

HIGH-PITCHED: Tah-tay-tee-toe-too.

And I remember very clearly the assistant director saying,

"All right, everybody, we're going to shoot this now.

"Now, this is a very funny scene and I don't want anybody laughing!"

Can't.

Cah-n't.

Ca-a-an't.

Cah-n't!

The general public thought it would be wonderful if they could

hear their stars, their favourite silent film stars, speak, but

it would be absolutely magnificent if they could hear them sing.

Well, not all of them could speak

and certainly many of them couldn't sing.

In the late '20s, the ever-inventive dream factory developed

a technology that could be used to replace the songs

of vocally challenged stars.

It was called playback.

It's very, very hard to get a legible recording of someone

singing live with a musical accompaniment, particularly while

they're dancing, moving around a set, shifting between shots.

So it's technologically necessary to record the music beforehand and

have the actors sort of mould their bodies to that existing soundtrack.

Then the studios realised they could replace one voice with another.

Technically, you could, because of sound, dub in voices.

You could ghost voices.

Ghost singing becomes part of Singin' In The Rain's plot.

The studio decide that Lina Lamont will be ghosted by a singer

called Kathy, played by Debbie Reynolds.

But there were issues with Reynolds' voice.

The teenage actress could not manage all the songs.

# ..My lucky charms

# I'm lucky... #

Debbie Reynolds could sing, there was no question,

and casting her made sense, but one song called "Would You?" was

an operetta song - extremely high, not at all in her range.

This is Debbie Reynolds' audio recording of "Would You?"

# They met as you and I

# And they were only friends... #

Debbie Reynolds, bless her,

has a thin, kind of, reedy voice, which is not

the kind of voice that would make Jean Hagen's image sound romantic.

So Debbie Reynolds, who was playing a ghost singer in the movie,

eventually had her own voice ghosted by this singer, Betty Noyes.

They called in several other singers, nobody got it right.

They finally, finally got around to calling her. She went in

and just aced it, did it perfectly.

# He holds her in his arms

# Would you?

# Would you? #

That particular song really had to be the highest standard,

and my mother was just more mature and was able to pull it off.

And I hope Debbie Reynolds was happy with it.

# They met as you and I

# And they were only friends... #

What you have is Betty Noyes dubbing for Debbie Reynolds,

who is dubbing for Jean Hagen.

This gets so convoluted that it's almost surreal,

and on the set, it must have seemed the strangest thing.

The irony was so delicious.

It was... Oh, God, I love that movie.

# I'm singin' in the rain

# Just singin' in the rain... #

Singin' In The Rain has become one of the most successful

and popular musicals in Hollywood history.

# Good mornin'

# We've talked the whole night through

# Good mornin' Good mornin' to you. #

There was a tremendous feeling on the set of Singin' In The Rain

that it was going to be a winner.

It was just...magic.

That's what the business is about - magic.

But Betty Noyes' moment of magic was kept secret for decades.

My mother didn't get a credit. Nobody got credits in those days.

I know my mother just felt honoured to be the voice of some big stars.

In the finale to Singin' In The Rain, Debbie Reynolds' character

Kathy achieves recognition for her singing.

The whole narrative of the film is about restoring credit where

credit is due, about exposing the ways in which labour is

exploited, culminating in this kind of climactic, cathartic moment

when the curtain is pulled back.

# Everyone from the place

# Come on with the rain... #

Debbie Reynolds is behind the curtain doing the actual singing

and then of course they pull the curtain apart

and you see that it's Debbie Reynolds singing.

AUDIENCE LAUGH

# I'm singin' in the rain

# Just singin' in the rain

# What a glorious feeling... #

So every time I hear "Would You?",

in my mind, I see another curtain behind Debbie Reynolds,

and I'd love to pull that one apart and let people see it was my mother.

# Would you? #

Ever since 1929, movie musicals have been made using playback.

And ghost singing swiftly became one of Tinseltown's best-kept secrets.

I think of that story about "why does a dog lick its private parts?"

and the answer is "because he can", and I think that's

a lot of what early sound technology was like. They had the ability

for the first time to transpose voices over images,

so why not do it?

The sort of quest for a perfect fake that's so central to Western

and especially, I think, American culture, that we want to create

the sort of hyperreal world that's only attainable through fabrication.

What we see on screen is inherently a false fabrication,

a Frankensteinian monster linked together between an image recorded

in one moment and a voice often recorded at a different space and time.

The sort of manipulation of that image becomes one of these

kind of hyperreal creations that kind of shimmers on screen.

It's a false image but one that's entirely satisfying as well.

For decades,

stars and singers were sworn to silence about ghost singing.

I began to call singers in Hollywood and they would tell me things.

And Ken Darby, who was the great vocal arranger who kept winning

Academy Awards every 20 minutes for vocal arrangement,

opened up his address book,

and he'd been working with singers in Hollywood since 1929.

The singers themselves would help me

and give me other names of their friends and colleagues.

And so I spoke with 175 different people

who dubbed - sometimes only once - back to 1929.

It was the heyday of the Hollywood star machine.

The great studios such as Paramount and Fox

kept their stars on long-term contracts.

The bosses protected the careers and reputations of their proteges

and in return the stars did what they were told.

There's nothing you can do. They have the call, it's their picture,

they can do what they want to do with it.

Consider the fact Hollywood didn't like your hair - change the colour.

They didn't like your eyebrows? They'd move them.

They didn't like your teeth? They can fix it.

They'd do all of these things, so wouldn't it make sense

that they would also say, "You can't sing? Don't worry, we'll dub it."

Rita Hayworth was one of the 1940s screen idols whose singing

was deemed substandard.

Rita Hayworth, on LIFE Magazine,

was billed as "the Love Goddess of America".

Well, the Love Goddess ought to be able to carry a tune,

but unfortunately the Love Goddess couldn't really carry a tune.

'So it took a whole array of different singers.'

# When they had the earthquake in San Francisco

# Back in 1906... #

'Anita Ellis was the voice of Gilda, so she sang Put The Blame On Mame.'

# ..Up to her old tricks... #

Rita Hayworth was worshipped, and everyone assumed that was her voice,

even though it sounded slightly different in different movies.

# I don't think so... #

Just how different they sounded can be heard in these three

Hayworth performances.

# There's no mistake

# He's very fond of me. #

# I'm old-fashioned

# I love the moonlight. #

# You'd better be going while the going is good. #

The question that fascinates me

is why we didn't hear a different voice every time Rita Hayworth sang,

and I think it's because the eye is more powerful than the ear.

We see that same lovely girl, we know she can dance like a dream,

and so somehow our ear is being tricked.

America had fallen in love with the movie musical.

Singing and dancing were welcome relief from the Great Depression

in the 1930s and world war in the '40s.

At the zenith of the Hollywood musical,

roughly half the movies made featured ghost singing.

It was so prevalent that it was expected.

This is the way you made movie musicals - you dubbed.

By the early 1950s, the dream factory was adapting

already successful Broadway musicals.

But the studios demanded screen stars, not well-known stage

performers, in films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

An example of a Broadway star being totally passed over for the

film version would be Carol Channing in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

She had become a star playing this role, she triumphed in it,

she was ideal for it, she was the right age for it,

she was not considered at all for the film.

The casting of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes provided an opportunity

for singer Marni Nixon.

Trained as an opera singer, Nixon sweetened - sang the high notes -

on a number by one of Tinseltown's sexiest-ever stars.

No!

I think there was a pitch problem. When she recorded it, she probably

just wasn't right directly on the pitch.

# No

# No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! #

Where she says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

and then, "Are a girl's best friend," right in there, yeah.

# But diamonds

# Are a girl's best...

# Best friend. #

So it was just a matter of me imitating her exact sound,

not to try to differ from that, but just try to be like her.

In 1955, Marni Nixon secretly sang on one of the most popular

movie musicals ever made.

A show penned by the legendary duo

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein - The King And I.

The King And I was a marvellous picture.

I was on the set of that quite a bit.

Great talents, great musicians, great score

all make it happen to put it on a frame that big.

It had glamour, it had exotic locales, it had a titanic

performer in Yul Brynner, it had wonderful costumes,

great dances by Jerome Robbins,

and it had a full-fledged movie star in Deborah Kerr.

Deborah Kerr - perfect for the leading lady.

Everything about Deborah Kerr is that character.

Deborah Kerr does not sing - "No problem, we'll dub her."

Marni Nixon was brought in to ghost sing for Kerr.

The results, as in the timeless song Getting To Know You,

are so seamless, that generations of viewers have been fooled.

So before that song starts, there's a verse which is spoken by Deborah.

"It's a very ancient saying but a sure and honest thought,

"that if you become a teacher, by a teacher you will be taught."

# It's a very ancient saying but a true and honest thought

# That if you become a teacher

# By your pupils you'll be taught. #

Then it's me.

# As a teacher, I've been learning

# You'll forgive me if I boast... #

# As a teacher, I've been learning

# You'll forgive me if I boast... #

The meld, the blend, was unbelievable.

# ..Subject I like most... #

'Then she says...'

# Getting to know you... #

That's her voice. And then the rest of the song is my voice.

# Getting to know you... # It's all my voice the rest of the way.

# Getting to know all about you

# Getting to like you... #

When you listen to Deborah Kerr, you imagine,

"What would this woman sound like when she started to sing?"

and I think Marni Nixon's voice is pretty close.

Deborah Kerr has a very crisp, clean way of speaking. She doesn't

mumble and Marni Nixon's voice of course is also crystal clear.

I think that transition from one voice to the other works very well.

A performance this perfect required the closest of collaborations

between star and singer.

Nixon and Kerr spent six weeks recording six songs.

She was in the recording studio with me at the same time.

She would just point to me when it was me

and I would point to her, and we would do the job that way.

Then she would go out and sit on a stool and we would both sit

there and listen, and we're wondering whether this was going to

be right or not, and then she'd say, "Yes, that's right."

In The King And I, the climactic number that everyone had been

waiting for is the "Shall We Dance?" number.

-# Shall we dance?

-One, two, three, and...

# On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?

# One, two, three... #

'They don't really have to sing,

'and that is accomplished by the artful voice-dubbing of Marni Nixon,

'who shadowed her in that sequence and followed her around.'

Marni Nixon got to see Deborah Kerr act and see her gestures

and see her inflections, so when that voice came out, it was organic

to what Deborah Kerr was doing.

# On the clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen

# Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we dance? #

-Now!

-One, two, three...

I would stand next to her side-by-side like a ghost image

and I would watch her and watch the conformation of her mouth, how

her lips moved, and I would imagine what she was trying to do

acting-wise, and I always made a joke, like, I would slice open

the top of her head and take all the contents out and look at that

while she was singing.

And I'm going, "Oh, that's what she's trying to do!"

And that's kind of an art form in and of itself.

I mean, you don't want Deborah Kerr to open her mouth in a screen

that's, you know, 40 feet wide and not sound like Deborah Kerr.

Marni Nixon's ghost singing was supposed to be a secret.

But the studio hadn't taken into account Deborah Kerr's

unusual candour.

I loved especially working with Deborah.

You know, everyone thinks that English actresses are so proper

and so this and so that.

Bullshit.

Um, I would like to state most emphatically that Mrs Anna is

not a stuffy, dull, prissy woman.

What sort of a woman is she, then?

She's a very wonderful, witty, warm, humorous, courageous woman,

and that sounds good, doesn't it?

Every now and then, she'd be in her dressing room with the door open,

and would call me into her dressing room. "Rita, come here!"

And I thought, "Oh, here we go, we're going to do a panty show."

Sure enough, she'd have a panty with some kind of saying on it,

and she says, "Isn't this wonderful?"

And usually it was something like "heavens above" or "heavens below".

She just loved them and I LOVED that about her.

This seemingly very proper lady who was not proper at all, at all.

Unlike other stars of the era,

Kerr refused to keep quiet about being ghosted.

Some of the songs in The King And I were really too difficult.

I was taking singing lessons

and hoping I'd be able to do the whole thing.

Well, no, it's not enough time.

You've got to have started when you were four, and I certainly hadn't.

But I had enough to be able to do some of the lead-ins,

and then we found this wonderful singer, Marni Nixon.

Kerr first came clean shortly after The King And I's release.

The studio was furious.

They had warned me that if any news ever got out that any part of

Deborah Kerr's voice had been dubbed,

they would see to it that I wouldn't work in town again.

And so then when it did, it was... You know, I was scared.

They wanted their stars to be perfect and they wanted their...

the audiences to believe they were as perfect as they appeared to be.

The studio is never going to let its audience find out, for example,

that Alan Ladd is so short that he's got to stand on a box every

time he talks to a woman.

This is not part of the mystique of the star,

so why would they tell them about the singing?

The King And I was the huge hit 20th Century Fox needed.

In the early '50s a new medium

was decimating movie theatre attendance -

television.

Because of this threat of television,

Hollywood was desperate to do things on the screen

that you could not see at home on your 12-inch black-and-white screen.

Therefore we had widescreen, we had Cinerama, we had 3-D -

anything to compete -

and musicals, they lend themselves to all of these things.

I think the magic of it, the sheen of it, the glory of it

probably allowed for a little bit more voice doubling

than you might have had in some of the earlier pictures in the '30s

because everything was just amped up to a higher level.

They were filtered through the genius of the studio system back then

so every trick and every technology was used

to make them absolutely perfect,

and there was millions of dollars riding on each of these movies.

The King And I had a budget of 4.5 million

and took 21 million at the box office.

Marni Nixon was paid a fee of 10,000.

Ghost singers mostly received only a standard studio singer rate of pay.

When I did the dubbing we were paid weekly.

Very weakly!

India Adams sang the songs for two other screen sirens of the 1940s and 1950s.

# That's entertainment... #

One was sex symbol Cyd Charisse.

Adams ghosted for her on the 1953 movie musical Band Wagon.

I'll never forget

the first time I was in a room with the MGM orchestra.

It was like, "Oh, God," I was filled with music.

It was just the most exciting, thrilling, incredible feeling.

It was just wonderful.

'Get aboard the Band Wagon for a grand, happy feeling.'

One of the songs was one called Two-Faced Woman.

'Assuming I can remember it, this is the way the verse goes.'

# Someday I will wake up Find out what is wrong

# With my jewel make-up

# I don't belong

# I can't help being a two-faced woman

# A little bit of boldness A little bit of sweetness

# A little bit of coldness A little bit of heatness

# You can't have...something The two-faced woman

# Because I've given you a warning I'll leave you in the morning

# Got another lover undercover

# I'm like a weather vane that goes with the breeze

# A little bit of goodness

# A little bit of badness

# A little bit of right and wrong! #

Hoo-hoo!

Oh, dear.

# You won't forget me... #

Two-Faced Woman was eventually dropped from Band Wagon

but it was used in another musical released that same year.

In Torch Song, Adams provided all the vocals

for screen siren Joan Crawford.

The difference in the presentation is absolutely amazing.

Cyd's was, like, pastel and balletic,

and soft and beautiful.

And the way they did it for Joan,

it was hard, and bright, and coloured.

In fact, they had her in what they called "tropical make-up",

which people have questioned ever since.

# They call me... #

'It's the only time in motion picture history'

that two different actresses have lip-synched to the very same vocal track.

In 1958, another adaptation of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was released,

featuring many of the era's leading ghost singers - South Pacific.

There are certain movies in which the number of people being dubbed

so outnumbered the people who are doing their own singing

that now we look back and it almost seems ludicrous.

# When the sky is a bright canary yellow

# I forget every cloud I've ever seen... #

'Mitzi Gaynor sings for herself'

because she has stage and nightclub experience.

Everyone else in that movie is dubbed.

Star and sex symbol John Kerr was the male lead.

He is convincing in the role of Lieutenant Cable

in the film of South Pacific,

but John was not a singer. He couldn't sing anything.

The studio held open auditions for a singer to ghost for Kerr.

As I was going into the audition process, there's Bill Lee.

Bill Lee was getting everything when it came to voice-dubbing.

Just as Marni Nixon was getting the gal's parts,

Bill was getting the guy's part.

John Kerr was dubbed by Bill Lee for Younger Than Springtime

and You've Got To Be Carefully Taught,

and that's kind of the way it worked back then.

It's the boat all right.

Oh, let them wait.

# I touch your hand and my arms grow strong

# Like a pair of birds that burst with song... #

It was fun the first time I saw it in the theatre because I could hear,

I was a teenage girl at that time

and I could hear other teenage girls just kind of going,

"Oh," when they heard Younger Than Springtime.

So I was always so proud of that because I had a little secret,

you know, with the, "Hey, that's my dad really singing there."

# Younger than springtime

# Am I gayer than laughter?

# Am I angel and lover, heaven and earth?

# Am I with you? #

You could say that audiences were cheated

or you could say they got the best of both worlds -

they got John Kerr's finely chiselled features and passionate delivery,

and they got Bill Lee's vocal technique.

# Just be patient now The sun is sure to shine

# And drive away the gloomy clouds that fill the sky. #

Bill Lee was part of a quartet called The Mellomen

and he sang solo for the stars in 13 movies between 1953 and 1967.

'They were the first-choice singers that people would go to'

and Bill Lee is one of those singers.

He had a beautiful, beautiful voice -

clean and sweet, and quite powerful when necessary.

The Mellomen did all kinds of voices.

They were always at the Disney studio.

MEN HOWLING TO THE TUNE OF THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

They were the howling dogs in Lady And The Tramp,

and they just turned them loose,

and said, "Have a good time with it. Be the hams that you are!"

'In that clip he has a blue checked shirt on.'

'The big tall man with the moustache is named Thurl Ravenscroft.

'He is an extraordinary talent as well.'

Thurl Ravenscroft was a bass

and when anybody needed a voice that is...so low

that the human ear can barely hear it,

they would hire Thurl Ravenscroft.

# Nothing in the world... #

In South Pacific, Ravenscroft provided the very distinctive voice

of Stewpot.

# There is absolutely nothing

# Like the frame of a dame. #

His is a very recognisable voice because it's so deep.

You know, he just really... He was the bass, bass, bass.

Betty Wand ghosted in 15 movies between 1948 and 1972.

In South Pacific she sang for young male actor Warren Hsieh.

I think she did the plantation owner's son...

-Attend, Papa.

-Attend, Papa.

..and that is the Dites-Moi song.

# Dites-moi

# Pourquoi

# La vie est belle... #

'Even today, the kids are watching different things'

and all of a sudden I'll hear my mum's voice, and I'll think,

"Boy, I didn't know she did that."

Rodgers and Hammerstein were musical perfectionists

and ensured they had the final say on South Pacific.

The irony was that both Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein

separately and respectively loathed Hollywood

because Hollywood had a long tradition of buying titles of Broadway shows

and completely eviscerating them.

They demanded some kind of executive control.

The duo made a controversial decision about the casting of islander Bloody Mary.

Even Juanita Hall, who created the role on Broadway,

is dubbed by Muriel Smith -

who played the same role in the London production.

# Oh

# Happy talk, keep talking happy talk

# Talk about things you like to do... #

It makes no sense at all and I can tell you Juanita Hall,

whom I knew, was not happy at all about it.

Rodgers was very particular about how things sounded,

especially for posterity.

So he may have thought that Muriel Smith's voice worked better, more fully.

She was a better singer than Juanita Hall in the surroundings

and in the context of the film of South Pacific.

Rodgers and Hammerstein developed doubts about Rossano Brazzi,

cast to act and sing the other lead male role.

Maybe the most popular, most influential song

Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote, among dozens,

was Some Enchanted Evening.

So in the film version of Some Enchanted Evening,

even though the character of Emile de Becque

was played by Rossano Brazzi, a very attractive Italian film actor,

he didn't have the vocal heft to perform it.

And that is the way things happen sometimes. Isn't it, Nellie?

Yes, it is, Emile.

# Some enchanted evening

# You may see a stranger

# You may see a stranger across a crowded room... #

Brazzi was ghosted by an operatic bass called Giorgio Tozzi,

known in opera circles as "hotzi Tozzi".

I think it's a good match.

The speaking voice of Rossano Brazzi seems to lend itself

to the singing voice of Tozzi

and I think that is a good example of dubbing.

But Brazzi was not pleased.

He said, "I cannot do it, I cannot sing to that goddamn shit voice!,"

and, like, dug his heels in, and refused to do playback,

and Josh Logan took him quietly aside,

and said, "A, you're wasting a lot of people's time and we're on location in Hawaii,

"and, B, you and I both know you can't sing the vocal demands of that score

"so why don't you behave yourself and go back onto the set?"

And Rossano Brazzi dignifiedly did.

By the mid-1950s ghost singing was an established

but undercover Hollywood industry.

The key players were professional singers

who would sometimes provide voices for the stars.

Many of the ghosts knew each other, worked and socialised together.

My mother used to love to entertain.

She loved to have a good time

and she would have a lot of the singers, these professional singers,

over to the house for these parties.

Bill Lee I think was there, Marni Nixon,

and that's really when the egos come

because one is now in competition of the other.

"Well, let me show you what I did in this movie," and, "I'll show you how to do it better."

"No, I can do it better than that, they should've hired me."

By the dawn of the '60s, the power of the studios was waning.

Many stars were no longer under contract.

They chose their own projects.

So movie-makers sometimes needed covert tactics to get their own way.

West Side Story, in 1961, featured Richard Beymer as Tony.

# Tonight, tonight

# I'll see my love tonight... #

Novice ghost singer Jimmy Bryant provided the vocals.

Yeah, it is a little strange to see somebody singing

and your voice coming out of the silver screen.

You know, it's a little... a little strange.

The lead female role was played by an already successful star, Natalie Wood.

'Natalie was thrilled with getting that role'

and she was, you know, very anxious...to do her own...

The possibility of doing her own vocals and she was quite good,

the tracks were wonderful.

But the associate producer Saul Chaplin and director Robert Wise

decided Wood's vocals were not up to scratch.

The one person that Robert Wise said yes to almost immediately,

unless somebody was going to say there was a problem, was Marni Nixon.

# I feel pretty, oh, so pretty... #

Nixon and Wood recorded separate versions of the songs,

one after the other.

This is Natalie Wood singing I Feel Pretty.

# I feel charming, oh, so charming

# It's alarming how charming I feel... #

It wasn't a terrible voice - it was reedy and thin,

and she was this tiny little person,

and her voice was a tiny little voice

that really didn't have any singing chops.

# See the pretty girl in that mirror there

# Who could that attractive girl be? #

You know, Natalie was not bad.

I mean, if it had been popular music she could have probably gotten away with it

but this was very difficult, demanding music.

She recorded the whole songs with the orchestra.

All of my friends from the Los Angeles Philharmonic,

who were very naughty,

they would saw away,

and then when I would get up and record the same song,

they would all sit and play like crazy because they were on my side.

It was very embarrassing.

# I feel pretty, oh, so pretty... #

In the final film, Nixon's recordings replaced all of Wood's.

# ..Any girl who isn't me today

# I feel charming, oh, so charming

# It's alarming how charming I feel

# And so pretty... #

I Feel Pretty, of course, has to be done with the...

her version of the Puerto Rican accent,

and I had to know exactly when to trip the R's.

# I feel pretty, oh, so pretty... #

# That the city should give me its key... #

You have to be very specific

and it drove me crazy because in the original score it's written...

# Ba, ba ba-da, ba, ba ba-da. #

..which is different than...

# Da-ba, ba da-a-a Ba-ba, ba ba-a-a. #

..like a waltz, it's...

# Da ba ba-da, da ba da... #

..which gives it that little kick.

# ..And so pretty Miss America can just resign... #

'I wanted to make it more musically correct.'

# See the pretty girl in that mirror there

# What mirror, where...? #

Natalie Wood had signed a contract giving the studio the option to replace her singing

but she was assured that Nixon would only be "sweetening" her high notes.

All the time they would record her learning the songs

without letting her know,

and then sneak me a recording

so that I could get used to the timbre of her voice.

'I don't think they were as forthright as they could have been.'

Hey, you know, it's not her choice.

They decided to go into a different direction,

there's nothing you can do.

You can't go in and fight for it

because they've already made their decision.

I think she wouldn't have stood for it,

I think she would have walked away

if she had known that they were going to replace her voice.

She was...

..disappointed, you know, obviously.

I mean, you work that hard and you...

She wanted that but it didn't happen.

I think that they knew from the beginning that they wouldn't use anything that she did.

I was even told that she went to the premiere

thinking that she was going to hear her voice, and didn't.

'At the Hollywood premiere famous star

'and celebrity turn out at the famous Chinese Theatre.'

Rita Moreno was cast as the fierce and feisty Anita

in West Side Story.

Moreno was that rare thing in Hollywood, a triple threat -

she could act, sing and dance professionally.

But composer Leonard Bernstein's score is notoriously difficult

and one song proved especially challenging.

I could not for the life of me - and, boy, let me tell you I tried -

reach the low notes in the song called A Boy Like That.

So they decided that they would use Betty Wand's voice

and keep Rita Moreno as a backup.

A Boy Like That was an unhappy experience for singer and star.

'I know as a fact that that almost blew out her throat.

'She had nodes on her throat and almost had to go in for surgery.'

I think it was A Boy Like That, that almost did it for her.

It's a tough, tough song.

# A boy like that would kill your brother

# Forget that boy and find another

# One of your own kind Stick to your own kind

# A boy like that... #

It really hurts me to listen to it every time because it's not hard,

it's not emotional enough, it's not guttural enough, it's not the way...

If you see my face, it was depicting what I should have sounded like.

# A boy who kills cannot love

# A boy who kills has no heart

# And he's the boy who gets your love and gets your heart!

# There is much, Maria There is much! #

'Here's the interesting thing,'

which is why I say don't fault Betty Wand for not "getting it right",

as I tend to think of it.

She was a singer, she was not an actress.

# A boy like that wants one thing only

# And when it's done he'll leave you lonely

# He'll murder your love He murdered mine... #

'If you're brought on to ghost-voice something'

I suppose you're brought on in the pursuit of musical perfection.

You may not even be with the actor who created the role

and I suppose you do run the risk that it...

that it ends up being musically perfect

but not capturing the history of the character.

You know, a true professional will always look at it like,

"I could have tweaked that a little bit,

"I could have added more accent, I could have done this, I could have done that."

So, yeah, she's always critiquing her own work

and looking for a better way but the movie producers and...

and production people are very satisfied with it,

so I guess that's all that matters.

Soundtrack albums to the great Hollywood musicals

were bestsellers

but the royalties from record sales

were not being shared by the performers.

The actors often received nothing except a salary.

No...I never got anything.

Nope. I think that was probably written in the contract

and I never got royalties, ever.

And the secret singers were not even credited for their work.

I think one of the saddest parts about the dilemma of ghost singers

for movie musicals is the cast albums that were so popular.

The record, and they were records then, the record of West Side Story,

the record of The King And I sold millions and millions of copies.

Nowhere on those records, in the smallest print possible,

does it mention Marni Nixon's name.

She is singing roughly half of those records.

In a way, she's one of the most popular recording stars ever

and nobody knows who she is.

Nixon had received a fee of 420 for the King And I soundtrack.

On West Side Story, she asked for royalties.

Marni Nixon had put a lot of work in that -

her voice was going to be very much a part not only of the film,

but of subsequent recordings and so forth,

so she felt that she should have some of the royalties.

Robert Wise said no.

I think Don Williams, Andy's brother,

told her that she really should get an agent,

and he told me I should get an agent, but she did, I didn't!

And so I hired a lawyer.

I hadn't signed a contract - I had them over a barrel.

He said, "Well, if they want to use any iota of your voice,

"you tell them you will not do it without credit."

They did some investigating

and found out that they had signed away all the royalties

and there were no more royalties to be given.

Nixon was an accomplished concert singer.

She had performed with the New York Philharmonic

under West Side Story's composer Leonard Bernstein.

He agreed to give her a very, very small percentage

of his record royalties and it was a huge hit, you know.

So I think she made some money off of that...and I didn't.

Leonard Bernstein gave up a quarter percentage of his royalties

so that I could get a quarter percent of a royalty

on the picture, which established a precedent.

That's what I got when I did dubbing from that time on.

This precedent inspired other ghost singers negotiating contracts.

Marni Nixon was a fabulous singer and blazed the way,

she fought for her rights.

Marni was truly a whistle-blower and she made the point that

the dubbers should be acknowledged and should be paid

for their soundtrack albums, and she did something very heroic.

By the early '60s, the dream factory had very definite views

about the ideal voice.

This is the voice of a movie star in a musical - the Marni Nixon voice.

And for the men, Bill Lee,

this is the voice people wanted to hear, or at least the studios

believed they wanted to hear.

And many critics criticised, "Why are all the leads in musicals

"sounding the same?"

And if Nixon and Lee weren't available

the studios hired ghost singers who sounded the same.

There's also, I believe, financial considerations in terms of

thinking about the box office and thinking about what kinds of voices

are going to please a general audience and this was certainly

a concern during the classical studio era.

Producers were very worried about finding voices

that were palatable and accessible.

Some performers found a way to beat the system.

One was Rex Harrison.

In 1956, Harrison conquered Broadway in the Alan Jay Lerner

and Frederick Loewe triumph My Fair Lady.

From the top of the next section.

From the top! From the top! From the top!

I'm a very gentle man.

# Even-tempered and good-natured whom you never hear complain... #

It was perfectly obvious that Rex Harrison couldn't sing

and he was terrified that he even had to do what little he did.

I started to think,

"Well, my Lord, I'd better take some singing lessons."

Well, this was disastrous because I'd only had about three

and I realised that I couldn't sing. And then I met a conductor,

and he taught me the thing of talking on pitch,

which is really something which I took to like a duck to water

and found it perfectly simple to do.

I was using the melody but not singing it.

In spite of all this, the 1964 movie of My Fair Lady

brought Harrison's trademark "talk-singing"

to a worldwide audience.

-Pickering, why can't a woman be more like a man?

-I beg your pardon?

Yes, why can't a woman be more like a man?

Men are so honest, so thoroughly square. Eternally noble...

He did something rather miraculous -

he spoke in tune.

Isn't that astonishing?

He spoke in the key of the song.

Why does every one do what the others do?

Can't a woman learn to use her head?

Why do they do everything their mothers do?

Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?

Why can't a woman...?

He said to the producers, "As I'm not a singer,

"the way to help me is allowing me the freedom to speak-sing it

"and to be free with the tempo in the live moment."

And they granted him this sort of special exemption

to do it with great effect.

In the Broadway musical, Eliza Doolittle had been played

by Julie Andrews to huge acclaim.

But Warner Brothers paid 5 million for the film rights.

And they wanted a household name.

When the songs were created they were created for Julie Andrews,

who sang like an angel. Hardly anyone in the history of Broadway,

I think, could sing as Julie did,

and so when the time came to make the film version,

and Julie Andrews wasn't in the film,

they had to have someone who could sing as well as she could.

'This is My Fair Lady.'

The part was offered to one of the brightest stars

in the Hollywood firmament - Audrey Hepburn.

She spent the next few weeks trying to appeal to the executives

and to the studio to give it to Julie,

and when she'd exhausted herself, then she accepted the part

and she accepted the fact that she had the bigger name

that could support the launch of the film

and that she was second-best perfect to playing the part.

Later, when we did finally meet, she said, "Oh, Julie," she said,

"You should have done it

"but I didn't have the guts to turn it down."

# Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait... #

Hepburn took singing lessons but her vocals survive in only a few songs.

This is one of them.

# ..and I'll have money

# Will I help you, don't be funny!

# Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait! #

It's a character song, not a pretty, lyrical ballad.

It's much more aggressive and I think she does a good job with it.

The problem is, can you switch the voice from Audrey Hepburn

in one kind of song into someone else in a different?

The ever-reliable Marni Nixon

was brought in to ghost on the other songs, including this one.

# Why, all at once my heart took flight... #

But not everyone thinks Nixon's singing worked for Hepburn

and the character she played.

If you look at the story you don't expect Eliza's singing

to exceed operatic quality.

# Tonight! #

I think that the gap is unnatural.

It was hard for me to match her voice

because she had such a mezzo, mellow sound to her voice.

And so I would try to kind of just...

you know, make up

trying to get my mouth to feel like it was a different shape.

Audrey Hepburn was so well-known and so loved.

Everyone knew what Audrey Hepburn sounded like.

They knew what she looked like.

This was a movie that changed her looks and gave her another sound.

It is said that Hepburn asked the producer,

"If Rex can talk-sing, why can't I?"

Men could do it, women could not.

Don't ask me why. It's a...

It's that whole gender business that always rears its ugly little head

into all sorts of things that you don't expect them to.

It was very frustrating for her, especially when she saw Rex Harrison,

who could not sing a note, getting away with his talk-singing.

But that show was written with that character doing that.

It was never written for Eliza to talk-sing.

Audrey Hepburn was famously gracious and unflappable.

Audrey would pick me up every morning with her driver.

We would then drive to the studio.

And we would be able to just talk, jabber.

I was a little embarrassed being, you know,

with such a wonderful famous person.

And she put everybody at ease this way.

But one day, Hepburn's feelings about the ghosting showed.

She walked out of the studio.

She couldn't say anything.

Very rare occurrence.

She must have been under a lot of pressure, frustrated as hell.

Then she came back into the studio the day afterwards

and she apologised for her "wicked behaviour".

She was such a wonderful person.

I admired her a lot.

The word "wicked" - probably, yes. It sounds like her, definitely.

My Fair Lady won eight Academy Awards in 1965.

Best Actress was not among them.

I must say, I take my hat off to the marvellous people in Hollywood

who twiddle all the knobs and who can make one voice out of two.

It was the start of a public backlash against ghost singing.

And Hepburn ended up presenting her co-star Rex Harrison

with the award for Best Male Actor.

Rex Harrison!

Rex Harrison, of course, receives his statuette...

That's what showbusiness is all about -

you have a smile no matter what's going on.

And as the Chaplin song puts it so accurately,

that's why it's such a legendary song, you've got to smile through it.

Though Julie Andrews was passed over for My Fair Lady,

the following year she played the part of Maria

in a musical that became the biggest-grossing of all time -

The Sound Of Music.

Andrews did not require any ghosting.

Christopher Plummer was cast as Captain von Trapp.

Plummer was good-looking and a successful Broadway star.

What he did not have, by his own admission,

was much, if any, experience singing.

He said, "I didn't even sing in the shower."

He said he was on the sound stage with Julie Andrews

and she grabbed his hand and sort of got him through it

and he was very pleased to be able to do his own singing for Edelweiss.

# Edelweiss, edelweiss... #

But this is not Christopher Plummer's voice.

Plummer was ghosted by the ever-busy Bill Lee

in the version of the movie the studio released.

# Small and white

# Clean and bright

# You look happy to meet me. #

What was challenging about matching Christopher Plummer

was my dad told me he barely opened his mouth on screen.

It was hard to tell when he was moving from one word to another.

# Blossom of snow

# May you bloom and grow...#

# Bloom and grow forever... #

It polished the performance. It gave it a sweetness, you know?

And especially in Edelweiss.

# Edelweiss

# Edelweiss... #

Sound Of Music was always going to go to Bill.

As I said a few times,

when you see Bill in the process of auditioning with other singers

around him, it's like, you know, "OK, Bill's going to get it."

"We'll find out who came in second."

# ..Forever. #

Most people don't know that it wasn't Christopher Plummer,

which is exactly what they want you to think.

This is Plummer's own unused vocal for Edelweiss.

# Edelweiss

# Edelweiss

# Bless my homeland forever. #

I think his pride argued with his common sense

and he realised that even though he really wanted his own voice

in the picture, it probably wasn't strong enough.

# Small and white

# Clean and bright

# You look happy to me... #

Some people say it's one of the reasons he has bad-mouthed

that movie over the last 40 years he calls it The Sound Of Mucus.

Back on Broadway in the early '70s, Plummer had the last laugh.

In 1973, Christopher Plummer played the part of Cyrano de Bergerac -

incredibly demanding part - in a musical version on Broadway

where he had to sing eight songs and fight two duels,

and he won the Tony for Best Actor in a musical.

Case closed, lock it up, put it away.

In an era when war raged in Vietnam and the civil rights movement

convulsed America, the soothing Sound Of Music became a smash hit.

People were somewhat discomforted by the general aggression

that would ferment later in the 1960s.

So a good family film, with some nuns and some singing kids

and a lady with a guitar seemed to work perfectly.

In the great musicals you're so swept up in the story.

In the case of a musical like Sound of Music, that takes you

into a kind of playful, joyous, carefree, poignant place.

Christopher Plummer wasn't the only one ghosted in The Sound Of Music.

The number of children's voices was, if not quite 16 going on 17,

certainly heading in that direction.

There were seven Von Trapp children in the film.

But there were 11 of us in front of the recording mic.

And that was the seven actors that were playing the role

and then the four of us professional singers.

And it wasn't only the Von Trapps who kept the singing in the family.

Charmian Carr, who played Liesl,

was 13-year-old Darleen Carr's elder sister.

We all sang together on mic

and then they asked me to do certain special parts.

I sang some of my sister Charmian's high obligato parts

when they're singing The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music

to Christopher Plummer in the drawing room.

# ..Through the trees

# My heart wants to sigh

# Like a chime that flies

# From a church on a breeze... #

She was happy to let me take those high notes

because, you know, nobody wants to sing something they can't sing

or that they're struggling to sing.

There were other sisters in The Sound Of Music

who were not doing it for themselves.

The nuns? Yes, the voice of Peggy Wood was ghosted.

She had been a television actor, so had been very popular,

and had the right look for the Mother Superior.

# How do you hold a moonbeam? #

Marni Nixon finally sang for herself on the silver screen

in the role of Sister Sophia.

# When I'm with her I'm confused

# Out of focus and bemused

# And I never know exactly where I am... #

This was entirely Robert Wise, to cast her as this nun,

because he would have her on hand

if you did run into a problem with ghosting of voices and so forth.

The Sound Of Music is known as the movie

that saved 20th Century Fox from financial meltdown.

20th Century Fox had put all their chips into a huge blockbuster

called Cleopatra, which was placed on a barge and sent down the Nile

and sank, and almost sunk the entire studio with it.

And of course The Sound Of Music skyrocketed to become,

in its day, the biggest success in film history.

After The Sound Of Music,

there was a stampede to produce more blockbusters.

Studios turned around overnight and said,

"We've got to make Broadway musicals into movies!"

And they made a bunch, and they all flopped.

The times, they were a'changing.

For decades, musicals had been popular music.

People of all ages listened to the same songs.

Now the music market was fragmenting.

# It's been a hard day's night... #

The Beatles were coming in from England to America,

pop music was taking over everything.

The Rolling Stones, you know?

Rock and roll was what was happening and that was the beginning

of the death of that style of movie-musical-making.

The curtain was coming down on the musical's golden age.

One disappointing release was Camelot in 1967.

Camelot was a disaster on many levels.

And dubbing was not the reason for it,

but it became clear dubbing is not going to save a musical.

# Wait till the sun shines, Nellie... #

Camelot did provide an opportunity at last for Gene Merlino.

Merlino was now a member of Bill Lee's group, The Mellomen,

and embracing the rock and roll revolution.

We did several movies with Elvis, the four of us, where we kind of

augmented his background guys, his cronies

that really couldn't sing too well.

So they needed some people who could fill in.

# Swing down chariot

# Stop and let me ride... #

The Trouble With Girls, we're on camera with Elvis

and he was a joy to work with.

# I've got a home on the other side

# Mmmmm. #

Merlino auditioned to ghost-sing for the Italian star

Franco Nero, cast as Lancelot.

As I was walking up the stairs to open the door,

I literally opened the door and out walks Bill Lee.

And I said, "Oh!" My eyes rolled.

"Oh, here's another one. Another one I'm going to lose."

And at that very, very moment Bill says these exact words,

"Gene, this one's yours."

So it worked out for me.

And I felt so blessed.

Franco, being an Italian, wanted to sing so badly.

And that's how he sang so bad... It's an old joke, I know.

I said, "Franco, how is it possible that you, an Italian, can't sing?"

Merlino sang two of Camelot's songs for Franco.

One was the vocally-challenging ballad If Ever.

I had to sing notes literally falsetto.

# If ever I would leave you It wouldn't be in summer

# Seeing you in summer I never would go. #

And I can't do it anymore now.

# If ever I would leave you It wouldn't be in summer

# Seeing you in summer I never would go. #

It was very, very difficult for me.

I got to tell you, I earned my money on that one.

# No, never could I leave you

# At all. #

Some of the guys in the orchestra knew me,

but they had no idea that I could do this kind of work

because they knew me as a pop singer.

They got up and were applauding, "Hey, Gene, what are you doing?"

"Oh, you know, you know. I can do all this stuff."

There were some hit musicals even as the form faded away.

One is a firm British favourite.

One of the last quality musicals

to come out of Hollywood at the end of this age

was the American and British production of Oliver.

This 1968 classic has, one could say, a "twist" in the tale.

Eight-year-old Mark Lester was cast in the lead role of Oliver.

I must have just looked right.

I think I just kind of, you know, they thought

"Well, this kid obviously looks right and he can't do anything,

"but we'll just put him in front of the camera and see what we can do."

Lester was almost perfect for the part.

There was just one problem.

My voice, I never really had a voice.

It certainly hasn't improved. In fact it's probably got worse.

To the point where my kids would tell me to stop singing

if I would endeavour to try and break into song.

By spring 1968, production at Shepperton Studios

was almost finished.

But the legendary American musical director Johnny Green

was still struggling to find a voice for Oliver.

My father went through lots and lots and lots of kids.

Hundreds, actually. And they wound up with three.

And each time Columbia Studios, who produced the movie, said,

"No, we don't like that voice."

And the film was going to be then late for release as a result.

On April the 3rd 1968, Kathe Green went to see her father

on the sound stage.

He was in the process of testing boys' voices.

So I was at the back of the booth and I hummed the correct melody.

And my father, who can be very intimidating, whipped around -

"Who did that?"

It was me.

And he finally got me to say that I had done that.

He said, "Can you lip-synch?"

I had no idea what he was asking but I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Go to my secretary's office, learn the song,

"be back here at four."

And that's what happened.

What's in the film - Where Is Love? -

what's in the film is the test that I did that day.

# Where is love?

# Does it fall from skies above?

# Is it underneath the willow tree

# That I've been dreaming of?

# Where is she?

# Who I close my eyes to see? #

Oh, you wouldn't want me to.

You wouldn't want me to sing.

It would destroy that wonderful image of that little boy singing.

So just...just don't go there.

That little boy's face, he just draws you in.

What's on the screen says it all, I think.

I just became him.

Where he swallows, I was really swallowing.

# When I see the face of someone who... #

Where he cries, I was really crying.

# I can mean something to... #

Oliver has to cry and tears roll down his face,

which is actually quite a difficult thing to do.

So Carol Reed devised this garland of onions

that they put round my neck, and it's out of shot, obviously,

but these onions sort of developed, and over about a couple of minutes,

my eyes were starting to well up, and that's how we got the shot.

I had no idea! Oh, my God.

A garland of onions he had round his neck?

In 1969, Oliver won six Oscars. One was for Best Musical Score.

So, this is the Oscar -

one of five that my father earned for his work in pictures.

This is the Oliver Oscar.

And because of my work on the film with him,

he gave me a little Oscar to go on my charm bracelet.

I think Kathe did an incredibly good job with the vocals.

The singing looked realistic, nobody actually knew

that it wasn't my voice until much, much later.

Being recognised for being the singing voice of Oliver is...

awesome.

Makes me very happy.

By the 1970s, the movies were tougher and grittier.

It was the era of Easy Riders and Raging Bulls,

of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

The musical all but died out.

With it went work for the secret singers.

My mother used to jokingly always say one reason why she got out

of the business is because they started making these sex films

and different things and they needed to call in a dub to come in

and do moaning and groaning.

She said, "You know, I'm a professional."

And they wanted her to audition to do that.

She would say, "They can moan and groan on their own,

"they don't need a dub to come in and do that kind of thing."

At last, ghost singers began to be credited

for their musical contributions.

Time Magazine actually gave me the title

"The Ghostess with the Mostest".

Not quite a rhyme, but close enough.

And that stuck, I felt that was a fantastic kind of handle.

Now it's a blessing because the name has a certain luminosity.

And now I can still go ahead and do what I do

in my concerts and operas and things.

When Hollywood musical soundtracks were re-released on CD, and later

iTunes, many secret singers finally received recognition for their work.

When soundtracks get re-released on CD,

when you have DVDs, DVD extras, it's fairly apparent that these

are the singers of those parts in those movie musicals.

So much, in fact, that if you go to iTunes and you want to...

I don't know, download a song from West Side Story, it will say

Marni Nixon, it won't say Natalie Wood.

So time has been kind to these very gifted artists

and they finally are getting the recognition that they deserve.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hollywood's Secret Singing Stars.

# You thought those singing stars could really sing

# You watch them as they fill the silver screen... #

In the 1990s, Betty Wand and India Adams

toured with a third ghost singer, Annette Warren.

They called themselves Hollywood's Secret Singing Stars.

Times have changed, where it's been a long enough period to where,

"Hey, why not? Let's tell people that we really did the work."

And that's where you are.

# But when it was time

# For rhythm and rhyme

# Did she sing one note? No! #

It's always satisfying getting public recognition.

# ..And could croon as well as swing... #

We'd played a lot of theatres and we had a lot of fun doing it,

it was great.

# Well, we're here to tell you what you didn't realise

# That we're the ones it's called dubbing

# We're the ones sometimes ghosting

# We're the ones

# Hollywood's secret singing stars

# We make the movie stars...

# Sing! #

It was the 21st century before the movie musical really revived.

A new wave of musicals such as Mamma Mia!...

..Sweeney Todd...

and Chicago reflected modern audiences' altered expectations

of their stars.

So even if, say, Renee Zellweger doesn't have an A+ musical voice,

or Richard Gere doesn't have an A+ musical voice

they are A+ movie stars and there is something about the connectedness

of their voice to who they are that has its own integrity,

and audiences seem to embrace that.

It seemed like a really great opportunity to have a lot of fun

and to be...

to be allowed to be free, physically, musically, emotionally.

I rather love the idea that

actors who are not normally known as singers

are now being asked to sing in films.

When it bothers me is when the songs require some seriously good singing.

Now, I don't think of Mamma Mia as the kind of film

that would require, you know, Marni Nixon.

Baz Luhrmann's casting of Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman

in his 2001 movie Moulin Rouge had broken the mould.

-# But I love you...

-# I love you

-# Till the end...

-# Until the end of time

# Come what may... #

We hear the kind of flutters in their voice,

the moments when they stumble, the pauses.

I think there's a way in which that resonates very differently.

It's palpable on screen and I think palpable to the audience.

# Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste

# It all revolves around you. #

This affects musicals. Because musicals was about perfection.

The perfect voice, the perfect love affair, the perfect romance.

We don't make movies like that

and we're not expecting those kind of stars anymore.

# Come what may... #

Luhrmann retained some imperfections in his stars' voices,

despite modern audio technology that could have refined them.

There's just a lot more help in the booth now.

There's a lot more technical pitch correction and things,

that a lot of actors can get away with a lot more.

That may not be the most politically correct thing to say

but it is definitely the truth.

The modern engineers are really...

miracle-workers, in some cases.

In the era of vocoders, it's surprising to me

that people still get so upset when we discover that our favourite

performers are lip-synching or performing to other voices.

The voice is so technologically mediated in contemporary music.

# Come on, get your, get your head in the game... #

And these days people do get upset.

In 2006, teen heart-throb Zac Ephron was ghosted by Drew Seeley

in the Disney TV movie High School Musical.

# Maybe this time we'll hit the right notes... #

The following year, Ephron publicly admitted it.

Modern audiences have a different idea about musical stars.

Today, they expect their musical stars to do their own singing.

They felt a little betrayed because they had discovered this

new talent, they had embraced him, they had made him a star

and they found out that some of his star quality was manufactured.

# Why am I feeling so wrong? #

In the age of the internet and social media, ghost singing

such as this can no longer be kept under wraps.

I better shake this. Yikes.

Hollywood, or what's left of Hollywood,

is not able to keep secrets anymore.

They do not have the power that they used to have over the press.

So today we know about all the stuff that goes on.

There's no secrets anymore.

With the international blockbuster movie of Les Miserables,

the story comes full circle.

Director Tom Hooper not only refused to use ghost singers,

he insisted that Les Miserables was produced without playback.

The performers all sang live on set.

It was incredibly daunting, but it was also really liberating,

because it means that you can be spontaneous while you're performing,

rather than spending 70% of your mind power thinking about

lip-syncing to an album you recorded a month or two before.

From the very beginning, I wanted to do Les Miserables live.

And I think this was partly a personal reaction

to the movie musicals I've seen, where, when it's to playback,

I...I always feel a distancing effect.