Julie Andrews granted “Gypsy” award by Professional Dancers Society 2
An amazing line up of talent on view at the Professional Dancers Society 25th anniversary gala luncheon honoring Julie Andrews on March 18, 2012. Previous PDS honorees Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, Marge Champion, Mitzi Gaynor, Carol Burnett, Joni Berry (Chairman of PDS), Rita Moreno and Florence Henderson, join Julie Andrews on stage as she ...
A horse is a good clean animal, says Betty Grable 2
Check out Betty Grable in “Meet Me After the Show” (1951): Dancing in silhouette, on the platform: Jack Cole, who staged the number. Paired with Cole for a dance-y horse race is the choreographer’s muse and assistant Gwen Verdon. This we learn from the horse’s mouth … er… from Academy of Dance on Film founder ...
Kosloff stages Fokine’s “Les Sylphides” @ 80,000-seat L.A. Memorial Coliseum
You’re a young city, spreading your wings. You build a ginormous sports arena. What should you do to inaugurate it? What else? Stage “Les Sylphides”! Dateline, Los Angeles Herald Tribune, July 29, 1923 LOS ANGELES TERPSICHOREANS. Theodore Kosloff [standing, at middle], dancing professor extraordinary, surrounded by a score of his premier pupils in the new ...
Talent! Joy! Pure pleasure! Thank you Don Cornelius.
What a mover~! Put Michael Jackson right up in the dance superstratum. How I wish I could have saved him.
Jack Cole rocks Rita Hayworth’s world in “Tonight and Every Night” (1945) 1
The ditty she sings is inane (remember, it was the War!) and the costume is not her greatest. But Rita Hayworth does her thing prettily enough. Life changes when a monster-dancer joins her on stage — Jack Cole. Choreographers: Pay attention @ 1:43. That is how to make an entrance — sliding in on your ...
Marie Bryant put a bun in Betty Grable’s oven 5
The silken jazz dancer, Marie Bryant (1919-1978), seen here jiving with the great Harold Nicholas, was, for a time, rehearsal assistant to Jack Cole. That’s interesting. Cole’s performance group was all white. It wouldn’t be otherwise. But he clearly relied on Bryant for special tasks. Asked what she did for Jack Cole, Bryant replied, “I ...
John Singer Sargent dresses Rita Hayworth for “Put the Blame on Mame” 2
“The designer Jean Louis, supposedly inspired by John Singer Sargent‘s famous portrait of the décolleté Madame X, created for Miss Hayworth a fetishistic black satin strapless gown, with elbow-length gloves, and the dance director Jack Cole devised the strip-tease routine in which she flung those gloves to her audience. The director, Vidor, expected the filming ...
In Hines vs Davis, Sammy wins by decision in first round 3
Jan
8
2012
The wonderful and charming Gregory Hines (1946-2003), try though he does in this touching dance-off, cannot out perform his idol, Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925-1990). The event took place soon before Davis died. Davis’s feathery touch on the floor is a revelation. Watch Hines watch Davis, 1:48 to 2:04. Watch him try to get in. Pure ...
Jack Cole invites you to a ball 4
From MGM’s “The Merry Widow” (1952) Jack Cole’s beautifully calibrated waltz sequence pours forth. Minutes and minutes of on-screen dancing. Audiences apparently used to like this; I guess they don’t anymore. Enjoy! Cole’s gigs at MGM were fewer then at Columbia or Fox (at MGM: Kismet twice: 1944, 1955, Les Girls 1957, Designing Woman 1957). ...
David Hallberg grew up obsessed by Fred Astaire
Dec
18
2011
Studying tap dance as a kid, before he got proper shoes, says David Hallberg, “I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.” Hallberg explains this charmingly in a marvelous profile that aired today on CBS’s News’s “Sunday Morning” program. The premier dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet and principal at American Ballet Theatre more ...