USC librarian Ned Comstock, beloved by film scholars, is no more 1
Jun
20
2024
photo credit marilee bradford The material would arrive unannounced—by email attachment. Lengthy, well-organized PDF documents of pages scanned from books, bundled, as complete packages with title pages, footnotes and relevant index pages. They were every researcher’s dream. They were culled from the depths of USC Cinematic Arts Library by a knowledgeable, passionate, and brilliant, really, ...
Fantastic: new generation discovers Jack Cole, launches ‘homage’ nightclub act in his name 2
I could not be more delighted. In my upcoming biography of the dancer/choreographer Jack Cole, which is completed but awaits publication, I have written extensively about the three outlets in which Cole choreographed and performed: on the Broadway stage, on screens of Hollywood, and in nightclub stage shows. All three bear witness to his dance ...
He’s just Ken. But, Ryan Gosling and Mandy Moore, Jack Cole has a name too. 10
Jack Cole (1911-1974) creator of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”was so bad-assed you’d think people would show respect. Instead, one of American-dance’s most original creators was stolen from, even in his lifetime–and he knew it. Nineteen million people watched, on Sunday night, when, at the 96th Oscar Award ceremony, actor Ryan Gosling, looking hot ...
The many modes of Chita Rivera
Mar
1
2024
Let’s watch this great dancer/entertainer, Chita Rivera (1933-2024), do her thing in her 2005 show “The Dancer’s Life,” in which she pays homage to her choreographers, Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins. It is a brilliant montage impeccably performed. Rivera found this luminous path to continue to share her gifts well into ...
Splendid early film choreography by Jack Cole for ‘Kismet’ (MGM, 1944) 2
This YouTube bundling of two lengthy harem numbers choreographed by Jack Cole for KISMET (MGM, 1944) displays the young choreographer’s mature grasp of his craft in staging, and in creating beautifull and unusual framing of dance for the eye of the camera. The first sequence has rare footage of The Kraft Sisters, in particular Beatrice ...
Jack Cole ‘discovered’ Steve Reeves
As you see from the above “information sheet” for “Theatre World” magazine, Steve Reeves, the astonishingly buff muscle guy in his first creative foray worked for the choreographer Jack Cole in Kismet on Broadway. Reeves played the “Wazir” [chief of police]’s guard. Reeves (not to be confused with George Reeves, television’s “Superman”) was big on ...
‘Give in!’ Buy Gwen Verdon portrait at Bonhams auction
little man little lola wants you. 12.5 x 17.75 in. As “Lola” in Damn Yankees, Gwen Verdon brought down the house with her powerhouse performance and her inimitable version of “Whatever Lola Wants,” performing the role over 1,000 times. She began both a working and personal relationship with choreographer Bob Fosse as a result of ...
Hollywood 1952: Jack Cole’s ethnic dance includes voodoo & waltz
In the summer and fall of 1951, the dance maker Jack Cole undertook two major new choreographies, one each at the two leading film studios of the era. He staged and danced the lead role in a voodoo ceremonial-rite for Lydia Bailey, at Twentieth Century Fox, and choreographed a sumptuous ‘grand valse’ for The Merry Widow ...
Ballet & blistering jazz-dance collide in Paris
Sep
3
2020
Youtube, you’ve done it again! And again and again. That’s how many times I have watched this wonderful newsreel clip, clearly an excerpt from a longer British Pathe story concerning … la danse. It takes place in Paris, which is always an excellent start. The cameraman seems be following a haughty prima ballerina, Ludmilla Tcherina, ...
Show some respect! for Martha Graham … and Jack Cole 5
Jun
27
2020
I was intrigued to learn, while doing research, that Jack Cole, a great dance pedagogue, instructed his pupils as follows: “Jack asked us to stand when he entered the dance studio, like Martha Graham‘s students,” one of Cole’s late-life students at UCLA told me in an interview. Cole was long an admirer of Graham with ...