Jack Cole’s pinnacle, “Ladies in Waiting” 3
Mitzi Gaynor, at right above, in a sotto voce-hiss to Kay Kendall in Jack Cole‘s brilliant “Ladies in Waiting” dance sequence from LES GIRLS (MGM, 1957), delivers bad news. Kendall will soon be exposed as a chorus dancer to her fiancé and his proper family. The number, full of drama both comic and tragic, uses ...
Historic Jack Cole film retrospective to MoMA
ALL THAT JACK (COLE) celebrating a great Hollywood choreographer 18-film retrospective/interviews/talks coming to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Jan 20 – Feb 4 2016 save the dates – film listings in december
Jack Cole’s precious “Ain’t Misbehavin'” from GENTLEMEN MARRY BRUNETTES (1955)
In which Cole first slows the Fats Waller song to a snail’s pace for Alan Young to sing, then ramps it up, to a jungle beat, spewing forth his love of African dance.
Bicoastal Jack Cole cross-fertilizes crazy hair Broadway-to-Hollywood
Actress Joan Diener, featured on Broadway in Kismet (1953 – 1955) shares a crazy-hair look with Betty Grable, pictured below in “Down Boy” from Three for the Show (1955, Columbia Pictures). Jack Cole, who choreographed (first) Kismet then the movie, took great care with the appearance of the women with whom he worked. He also ...
Fred, seriously
Hollywood’s great dancing man, always jolly and carefree, here displays a different aspect. Fred Astaire in a somber mode, in Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH (1959). Photo credit: theroadshowversion.com
Thank you, Gene Allen
Saddened to learn today that the great Hollywood art director Gene Allen, the man who converted director George Cukor’s vision to rich mise-en-scene, died October 7 of natural causes in Newport Beach. Allen, who lived a long life, perished at 97. Yes, Gene Allen, the much hallowed Academy Award-winning art director of MY FAIR LADY ...
Jack Cole choreography for GILDA set to sizzle on UCLA Film Archive big screen 1
Do you enjoy this classic image of Rita Hayworth as GILDA? It’s a capture from Hayworth’s iconic high-end striptease, “Put the Blame on Mame,” choreographed by Jack Cole, the brilliant dance maker who rocked Hayworth’s world at Columbia Pictures in the 1940s. Cole’s dance numbers (“Put the Blame on Mame,” “Amado Mio“), taken together, raise ...
Eugene Loring coaches Daniel Levans as “Billy the Kid”
Sep
22
2015
Ever wonder what ballet coaching does? Above, Eugene Loring (right), choreographer of “Billy the Kid” and ballet master of the American School of Dance on Hollywood Boulevard as well as founder of the dance department at UC Irvine, coaches Daniel Levans in a 1973 re-staging of his work. (Levans, sadly, just passed away.) John Kriza, ...
Grover Dale’s Labor Day wish for dancers
It takes a dance legend with a resume as impressive as dancer/choreographer/dance educator Grover Dale to bring it down to what really matters. Yes, it’s work. Yes, you need the money. But, hey, dancer … do it because you have to. The above sketch was shared on this Labor Day weekend by Grover, the creative ...
Barrie Chase rocks the Hermes sandal 4
An interview with the statuesque and still gorgeous Barrie Chase spurred a Facebook exchange about the hip-looking Grecian-style sandals the cool sixties dance-doll wears in these photos. First to comment was longtime ballet master and presenter Don Hewitt, “I have called them Hermes sandals. I thought Bologna’s famous bronze of Mercury/Hermes “en attitude” was wearing ...