Millie Brown counts herself lucky that she doesn't have arthritis, like other 75-year-olds she knows. But even though her fingers are still agile, she continues to practice guitar and memorize jazz and classical runs. She even goes to the gym every day to keep her back strong.
"It becomes a way of life," Brown said.
For almost all her life, Fairfax resident Millie Brown has been a performing artist. While others her age may have given up on their instruments because of their health, Brown said it's music that keeps her going.
"I think the thing is to have a vision of how you want to age. And this is how I want to age," Brown said.
Although she likes playing all kinds of music, she loves show tunes, because of their lilt, and French music. She returns to Paris every year to perform in front of a church with other street performers for 2 1/2 hours. Crowds fill around them, and sometimes there's dancing, and song sheets passed.
"I try to do a wide breadth because it's all fun," Brown said.
BROWN was born in 1927 in New York City. She lived in both New York and New Jersey and went to school at the Dramatic Workshop with Tony Curtis and Harry Belafonte.
When she was 24, she had a lead role in a production and needed to practice with an accompanist. The accompanist had agreed to practice later that evening, but when Brown arrived at her house later that evening, she recalled that it was cold and rainy and that the accompanist said she didn't have any time for her. With the door shut in her face, Brown decided to take charge.
"It shook me up so," Brown said. "I will never again be a beggar for an accompanist. I'll be my own."
Brown and her husband chose the guitar initially to help them stop smoking. Although her husband stopped learning, she continued. She liked what she heard, and she soon started teaching guitar to others. Her first gig was playing folk music at Rutgers in the 1960s. She was paid $15.
When her husband, who worked in the government, moved to California, Brown was hired by a catering company to play for parties. She played and sang at parties hosted by Bette Davis, Cesar Romano and Marilyn Maxwell, among others. She was also one of the few female guitarists in Hollywood at the time.
However, she played professionally for only five years, because it was difficult to juggle family and career. When her husband retired early, they traveled abroad, living in Holland, London, Italy and Paris. She continued to give music lessons at the American schools there.
They eventually returned to the states, to Seattle, and Brown taught her husband jazz piano. When he died and one of her daughters birthed twins, Brown moved to Northern Virginia to be near her children. That was 12 years ago.
"She's been playing all my life," said Brown's daughter Margot Peet, who lives in Fairfax Station. Peet recalled going to bed and listening to her mother practice. "That's the great thing about music. It's a lifelong endeavor."
Although older, Brown continues to perform whenever she can. For the past six years, Brown has been living at the Little River Glen Senior Center, where she helps out with the chorus and monthly birthday celebrations. She teaches her grandchildren music and plays duets with Peet's husband, a flautist, at family gatherings. At her French class at Northern Virginia Community College, she sang her French repertoire to the class. And every day, she practices sophisticated chord progressions.
"I'm never satisfied with what I know. I keep building," Brown said.