Marni Nixon, the famed Hollywood “ghost” voice whose singing was dubbed into the soundtracks of film musicals for stars such as Natalie Wood in “West Side Story” and Audrey Hepburn
in “My Fair Lady,” has diedat 86.
Nixon, whose film work financed her voice studies, performed extensively in classical repertory. One of her early engagements, in 1947, was as the soprano soloist in Orff’s “Carmina burana” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Leopold Stokowski conducting. She subsequently built a reputation for interpreting the vocal works of modern and contemporary composers.
Later in life, Nixon sang her former ghost roles on concert tours and in theatrical productions, notably a 1964 run of “My Fair Lady” in New York.
An obituary by The New York Times’ Margalit Fox:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/arts/music/marni-nixon-singer-soprano-dies-86.html