<P> Born in Altadena, California to Charles Nixon and Margaret Elsa (née Wittke) McEathron, Nixon was a child film actress who also played the violin and began singing at an early age in choruses, including performing solos with the Roger Wagner Chorale . She went on to study singing and opera with, among others, Vera Schwarz, Carl Ebert, Boris Goldovsky and Sarah Caldwell . In 1947, having adopted the stage name Marni Nixon, she made her Hollywood Bowl solo debut in Carmina Burana with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor Leopold Stokowski . </P> <P> Nixon's career in film started in 1948 when she sang the voices of the angels heard by Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc (1948). The same year, she did her first dubbing work when she provided Margaret O'Brien's singing voice in 1948's Big City and then 1949's The Secret Garden . She sang for Jeanne Crain in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950) and dubbed Marilyn Monroe's high notes in "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Also in 1953, she sang for Ida Lupino in Jennifer . Nixon appeared on Broadway in 1954 in The Girl in Pink Tights . </P> <P> In 1956, she worked closely with Deborah Kerr to supply the star's singing voice for the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I and the next year she again worked with Kerr to dub her voice in An Affair to Remember . That year, she also sang for Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin . In 1960, she dubbed Janet Leigh's voice in Pepe and had an on - screen chorus role in Can - Can . In 1961's West Side Story, the studio kept her work on the film (as the singing voice of Natalie Wood's Maria) a secret from the actress, and Nixon also dubbed Rita Moreno's singing in the film's "Tonight" quintet . She asked the film's producers for, but did not receive, any direct royalties from her work on the film, but Leonard Bernstein contractually gave her 1 / 4 of one percent of his personal royalties from it . In 1962, she also sang Wood's high notes in Gypsy . For My Fair Lady in 1964, she again worked with the female lead of the film, Audrey Hepburn, to perform the songs of Hepburn's character Eliza . Because of her uncredited dubbing work in these films, Time magazine called her "The Ghostess with the Mostest". </P> <P> Nixon made guest appearances with Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, including in 1960, singing "Improvisation sur Mallarmé I" from Pli selon pli by Pierre Boulez, and on April 9, 1961, in a program entitled "Folk Music in the Concert Hall", singing three "Songs of the Auvergne" by Joseph Canteloube . Before My Fair Lady was released in theatres in 1964, Nixon played Eliza in a revival of the musical at New York City Center . Nixon's first onscreen appearance was as Sister Sophia in the 1965 film The Sound of Music . In the DVD commentary to the film, director Robert Wise comments that audiences were finally able to see the woman whose voice they knew so well . In 1967, she was the singing voice of Princess Serena in a live action and animated version of Jack and the Beanstalk on NBC . Especially in the 1960s, but also earlier and later, Nixon made concert appearances, specializing in contemporary music as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and gave recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Town Hall in New York City . </P>

Who dubbed deborah kerr in the king and i