Writhing & wriggling Gwen Verdon elicits yawns in “David and Bathsheba”
In this wonderful clip from DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951), the great Gwen Verdon fails to arouse the attention of a couple of onlookers, despite choreographer Jack Cole throwing every slinky trick in the book at them. Watching Gorgeous Gwen, you’d think they’d at least sit up in their chairs! The 20th Century-Fox Biblical epic, directed ...
Jack Cole’s arm coaches Rita Hayworth in “Amado Mio” from GILDA
For the longest time, we have wondered whether the great choreographer Jack Cole (born in New Brunswick New Jersey, he got his start as a barefoot Denishawn dancer) worked with Rita Hayworth on her Latin-dance number, “Amado Mio” from GILDA (1946). That choreography would be above and beyond his well-acknowledged creation of Rita’s seminal, classy ...
Mitzi Gaynor to “go on with the show!” @ “There’s No Business … ” screening
We are so looking forward to big screen viewing, on its 60th anniversary, of 20th Century-Fox’s star-studded Cinemascope colossus, THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954) next Tuesday, Dec 9 at the Regent Theater. [Everything you ever wanted to know about “There’s No Business” on this amazing webpage… ] The musical, chock filled with great ...
Jack Cole’s “Hindu Swing” revisited by Namita Kapoor
Aug
5
2014
We have been delighted to be in touch with fellow Jack Cole fantatic Namita Kapoor, a talented American dancer/choreographer and graphic designer who has found cultural connection in an odd (but awesome) phenomenon of nightclub culture from the late 1930s – 1950s. That is, Jack Cole’s mash-up of classical Indian dance with American jazz rhythms. ...
Meet Marc Platt, stage & screen dancer 2
Born ‘Marcel Emile Gaston Leplat’ in Pasadena, California, on December 2, 1913, Marc Platt’s passion (and training) for classic dance started at an early age. The son of concert artists, he began studying dance with Mary Ann Welles in Seattle, at age 12, when after watching her class he declared: “I could do that.” They let him ...
Something to celebrate: Marc Platt turns 100! 4
One of the greats, Marc Platt, a veteran of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo (as Marc Platoff), Agnes de Mille’s original Broadway cast of “Oklahoma,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Tonight and Every Night,” just turned 100. And his friends are throwing a party him in northern California this weekend. Dance lovers invited! ...
Susan Marshall’s fetishized femmes
“Stop,” created by choreographer Susan Marshall, is a music video featuring an original score by Pulitzer prize-winning composer David Lang, played by members of the electric guitar quartet Dither and Mantra Percussion. “Stop” is a virtual companion piece to Susan Marshall & Company‘s new dance performance Play/Pause, which the Center for the Art of Performance ...
In last night’s “Emmys” dance number, gloved arms by Jack Cole 1
Sep
23
2013
In last night’s Emmy broadcast, dance maker Spencer Liff opened his “Number in the Middle of the Show,” with a filip right out of Jack Cole’s playbook: black opera-length gloved arms reaching through holes in a wall … a distinctive design element that Cole used repeatedly. Below, he uses it in “Tars & Spars” (1946) ...
At “Oscars Outdoors,” gentlemen still prefer blondes 1
It was a super-special 60th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” summer series, of 20th Century-Fox’s comic classic from 1953, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” the movie that blasted off the career of Marilyn Monroe. And the flick’s funnier than ever. Lead actresses Monroe and Jane Russell zing out hilarious ...
George Chakiris to introduce GENTLEMEN at Academy; Debra Levine to discuss Jack Cole
Sixty years after appearing as a chorus dancer behind Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” George Chakiris will host the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” screening of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES Saturday night, August 3, 2013. In the photo at right we see George, a young man with fake grey highlights spraypainted in his hair. ...