Septuagenarian Miller doesn't miss a beat. (News).

Ann Miller spent her youth tap dancing around regiments of admiring sailors and tuxedoed gents. She tapped on tabletops and trod the backs of shirtless he-men, hoofing it up with Ginger Rogers and Bob Fosse. Lucille Ball discovered her, Louis B. Mayer wooed her, and Liza Minelli recently sent her a wedding invitation. She won a Best Legs Award from the Legs Hall of Fame, and the feet at the end of those legs reportedly have been clocked at 500 taps per minute. To be Ann Miller is, as the saying goes, nice work if you can get it.

"Too Darn Hot: An Evening with Living Legend Ann Miller," held July 26 at San Francisco's Castro Theater, raised funds for the activist group Survive AIDS. A nearly sold-out house cheered a preshow screening of clips from Miller's many movie musicals, one of several attractions that led up to the main events--an onstage conversation between Miller and local film critic Jan Wahl, and a screening of Kiss Me Kate in 3-D. Dressed in a red sequined jacket, the 79-year-old Miller maintained an aura of Hollywood glamour. What had changed most noticeably was her height. "I was 5' 7", but time marched on and now I'm 5' 3"," she said. "If I [had been] the height I am now, I could have danced with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire."

The plain-spoken, Texas-born tapper was quick with quips and generous with her memories. She actually did dance with Astaire--but to her great regret, she said in a later phone interview, only once, in Easter Parade. "What a lovely man he was," she said. "I treasured dancing with him." Miller's height worked mostly in her favor--after she won an amateur talent contest at L.A.'s Orpheum Theater, she, at the age of 13, landed a job at San Francisco's Bal Tabarin nightclub. It was there that Ball and talent scout/comedian Benny Rubin discovered her. Soon thereafter she signed a seven-year contract with RKO and went on to work with the MGM and Columbia studios, appearing in more than thirty films (most recently David Lynch's Mulholland Drive), and in stage and TV shows.

Though her mother wanted her to be a ballerina, Miller said, "Maybe it was the Indian blood in me, but tap took over. It's the rhythm--it's happy hearted. There's something very electric about it if it's done right." While she appreciates younger tappers like Savion Glover ("it's a stomping type [of tap]") and Gregory Hines ("good old-fashioned hoofing"), Miller likes a little ballet in her tap. She began her dance studies at 6, and took ballet even after she became known for her tapping. "I think ballet is the foundation of all dance," she said.

Miller's verve, speed, and finesse onscreen belie the plain hard work to which she credits her success. She recalled injuries and working conditions that would make today's dancer blanch. During the filming of "I've Gotta Hear That Beat," her showstopper in the Busby Berkeley musical Small Town Girl, Miller developed a blister that broke and bled. She asked Berkeley, whom she termed "a sadistic genius," if she could go change her stockings, but her request was denied. "The camera to him was a kaleidoscope. All he could see was the formations," Miller said. "He was a master at what he did, but he didn't have any feeling for anybody who had to stop and fix a blister or go to the bathroom." Miller said she kept dancing in the bloody shoe, which she later threw away; still, she considers "Beat" (in which she dances around the instrument-wielding arms of dozens of musicians whose bodies are hidden below the stage) her best number.

Despite regrets about her height, the hard work, and sometimes low wages, Miller relished her life in dance. "Every night was an opening night for me," she said. "The audience was there. Some nights they smiled a lot, applauded a lot. Some nights they looked kind of glum, but then they'd give you standing ovations--no two nights were alike. You had to win them over."