Who dubbed the singing voice of the character Maria in the 1961 film version of West Side Story?

Dubbing voices on film started as soon as the talkies came along. Stars who had been huge in silent films sometimes turned out to have poor voices for recording. The film Singing in the Rain was based on this. In later years this was the fate of Marni Nixon. Her voice has often been heard coming from the mouths of various stars. She sang for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. She sang the top notes for Marilyn Monroe’s Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And she was the voice of Maria/Natalie Wood in West Side Story.

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Richard D. Boyle

Greatest singing dubber of the 20th Century.

Patrick T

Marni Nixon also played one of the nuns in the Sound of Music.

Corrine Corky Manning Yaccino

Marni Nixon was also one of the nuns in Sound of Music and voiced one of the geese in Mary Poppins.

Phil Kennelty

She also sometimes also dubbed for singers in Musicals on Broadway.

✨KRISTA✨

I didn't know that.🤔 Fantastic voice!🤗🎶

Robin Heckler

This was the first musical I ever saw. It was Mama's favorite. She had the album and whenever it came on tv we sat down together to watch it.

Howard Groopman

I hope she was well-compensated. She had some major singing gigs. Marni was married to composer Ernest Gold ("Exodus"). Their son Andrew was a well-known singer, songwriter and musician. He died way too young. Played behind Linda Ronstadt.

Francie Carlson

Marni Nixon also dubbed Deborah Kerr’s voice in The King and I!

teacherchicky

She dubbed for some of the greatest actresses and movies of our time!

William Laughlin

Diane Brown, Natalie Wood sang in the film "Gypsy". Lauren Bacall sang many times. She sang in "To Have and Have Not". According to the film's director, Howard Hawks, quoted by Joseph McBride in the book ''Hawks on Hawks'' (1982): ''We had a hell of a time trying to find a girl to sing with as low a voice as Bacall's. So I got Andy Williams, (who was 16 at the time) and we took all the music he recorded and let Bacall mouth it to his singing. But she was singing at the same time, and I thought she sounded better than Andy Williams. So we went back and did the whole thing over again. It was all her singing. There was another picture where she sang, 'The Big Sleep.' And that was her voice too.'' Lauren Bacall also sang on the Broadway stage and earned Tony Awards for her performances in the Broadway musicals "Applause" and "Woman of the Year".

William Laughlin

Adolfo E. Bonafoux, Hepburn's voice was not dubbed in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer composed "Moon River" with Hepburn's limited vocal range in mind, having heard her sing in "Funny Face." There was talk of having Marni Nixon dub her vocals, as she would do a couple years later in "My Fair Lady", but director Blake Edwards decided that Hepburn's own plain, unvarnished rendition of the song fit the character better.