Frank Beacham's Journal

Bob Fosse was born 95 years ago today

Bob Fosse, center, leads the cast through an energetic dance number during a rehearsal of his musical “Big Deal” at the Minskoff Rehearsal Studios, Broadway, March 31, 1986

Photo from Associated Press

Bob Fosse was born 95 years ago today.

An actor, dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director, Fosse won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning for his direction of Cabaret (beating Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather).

Born in Chicago to a Norwegian American father, Cyril K. Fosse, and Irish-born mother, Sara Alice Fosse, Fosse was the second youngest of six children. He teamed up with Charles Grass, another young dancer, and began a collaboration under the name The Riff Brothers. They toured theaters throughout the Chicago area.

After being recruited into the military, Fosse was placed in the variety show, Tough Situation, which toured military and naval bases in the Pacific. He then moved to New York with the ambition of being the new Fred Astaire.

Fosse’s appearance with his first wife and dance partner, Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987), in Call Me Mister brought him to the attention of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Fosse and Niles were regular performers on Your Hit Parade during its 1950-51 season, and during this season Martin and Lewis caught their act in New York's Pierre Hotel. Martin and Lewis scheduled them to appear on the Colgate Comedy Hour.

Fosse was signed to a MGM contract in 1953. His early screen appearances included Give A Girl A Break, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me Kate, all released in 1953. A short sequence that he choreographed in the latter (and danced with Carol Haney) brought him to the attention of Broadway producers.

Fosse was reluctant to move from Hollywood to theatre. However, he made the move, and in 1954, he choreographed his first musical, The Pajama Game, followed by George Abbott's Damn Yankees in 1955. It was while working on the latter show that he first met Gwen Verdon, the redheaded rising star and his future wife. He married her in 1960.

Verdon won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in Damn Yankees (she had won previously for best supporting actress in Can-Can).

Fosse appears in the film version of Damn Yankees, which he also choreographed, in which Verdon reprises her stage triumph as "Lola." They partner with each other in the mambo number, "Who's Got the Pain."

In 1957, Fosse choreographed New Girl in Town, also directed by Abbott, and Verdon won her second Leading Actress Tony. That year he also choreographed the film version of "Pajama Game," starring Doris Day.

In 1960, Fosse was, for the first time, both director and choreographer of a musical called simply, Redhead. With Redhead, Verdon won her third Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The show won the Tony for best musical and Fosse carried off the award for best choreography. Fosse partnered with Verdon as her director/choreographer again with Sweet Charity and again with Chicago.

Fosse won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical in 1973 with Pippin. He performed a memorable song and dance number in Stanley Donen's 1974 film version of The Little Prince, and in 1977, Fosse had a small role in the romantic comedy, Thieves.

Notable distinctions of Fosse's style included the use of turned-in knees, sideways shuffling, rolled shoulders and jazz hands. With Astaire as an influence, he used props such as bowler hats, canes and chairs. His trademark use of hats was influenced by his own self-consciousness.

According to Martin Gottfried in his biography of Fosse, "His baldness was the reason that he wore hats and was doubtless why he put hats on his dancers." He used gloves in his performances because he did not like his hands. Some of his most popular numbers include "Steam Heat" (The Pajama Game) and "Big Spender" (Sweet Charity).

Fosse directed five feature films. His first, Sweet Charity in 1969, starring Shirley MacLaine, is an adaptation of the Broadway musical he had directed and choreographed. Fosse shot the film largely on location in Manhattan.

His second film, Cabaret, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director, which he won over Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather starring Marlon Brando. The film was shot on location in Berlin. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey both won Oscars for their roles.

Fosse went on to direct Lenny in 1974, a biopic of comic Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, among other awards.

However, just as Fosse picked up his Oscar for Cabaret, his Tony for Pippin and an Emmy for directing Liza Minnelli's television concert, Liza with a Z, his health suffered. He underwent open-heart surgery.

In 1979, Fosse co-wrote and directed a semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz, which portrayed the life of a womanizing, drug-addicted choreographer-director in the midst of triumph and failure. All That Jazz won four Academy Awards, earning Fosse his third Oscar nomination for Best Director. It also won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

On September 23, 1987, Fosse died from a heart attack at George Washington University Hospital, while the revival of Sweet Charity was opening at the nearby National Theatre.

Here, Fosse’s former wife, Gwen Verdon, narrates a film features various clips of Fosse dancing.

Gower Champion was born 103 years ago today.

Marge and Gower Champion sunbathing by the swimming pool at the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, 1953

Photo by Maurice Terrell

Gower Champion was born 103 years ago today.

An actor, theatre director, choreographer and dancer, Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois. He studied dance from an early age and, at the age of fifteen, toured nightclubs with a friend, Jeanne Tyler. There were billed as "Gower and Jeanne, America's Youngest Dance Team."

In 1939, "Gower and Jeanne" danced to the music of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film short-subject, "The Dipsy Doodler" (released in 1940).

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Champion worked on Broadway as a solo dancer and choreographer. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, Champion met Marjorie Belcher, who became his new partner. The two were married in 1947.

In the early 1950s, Marge and Gower Champion made seven film musicals: Mr. Music (1950, with Bing Crosby), the 1951 remake of Show Boat (with Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson), 1952's Lovely to Look At (a remake of Roberta, also with Keel and Grayson), the autobiographical Everything I Have Is Yours (1952), Give a Girl a Break (1953, with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse), Jupiter's Darling (1955, with Keel and Esther Williams) and Three for the Show (1955, with Betty Grable and Jack Lemmon).

All were made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer except Mr. Music (Paramount) and Three for the Show (Columbia). Throughout the 1950s, they performed on a number of television variety shows, and in 1957 they starred in their own short-lived CBS sitcom, The Marge and Gower Champion Show, which was based on their actual career experiences.

In 1948, Champion had begun to direct as well, and he won the first of eight Tony Awards for his staging of Lend An Ear, the show that introduced Carol Channing to New York theater audiences. During the 1950s, he only worked on two Broadway musicals — choreographing Make a Wish in 1951 and directing, staging and starring in 3 For Tonight in 1955.

Champion preferred to spend most of his time in Hollywood. However, in the 1960s, he directed a number of Broadway hits that put him at the top of his profession. He had a solid success in 1960 with Bye Bye Birdie, a show about an Elvis-like rock star about to be inducted into the Army. The show starred relative unknowns Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke along with a youthful cast.

It ran 607 performances and won four Tony awards, including Best Musical and two for Champion's direction and choreography.

Next came Carnival! in 1961, which ran 719 performances and garnered seven Tony nominations, including one for Champion's direction.

In 1964, he directed one of Broadway's biggest blockbusters, Hello, Dolly! It ran for 2844 performances — almost seven years. Starring Carol Channing, it's best remembered for the title number, where Dolly is greeted by the staff of a restaurant after having been away for years. The show won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, as well as two for Champion's direction and choreography.

Champion had his fourth consecutive hit musical with I Do! I Do! in 1966. It featured a cast of two — veterans Mary Martin and Robert Preston — playing a couple seen throughout the years of their marriage. The show ran for 560 performances and got seven Tony nominations, including one for Champion's direction.

In early 1979, Champion received from his doctors at the Scripps Institute a diagnosis of Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare form of blood cancer. He began treatment at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles and was advised not to take on work.

Champion died at age 61 on August 25, 1980 in New York City at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Champion's death came only ten hours before the opening-night curtain of “42nd Street,” the Broadway musical he directed. It would be his greatest success, running nine years. Producer David Merrick asked Champion's family to keep the news secret from everyone, including the show's cast.

During the enthusiastic curtain calls, he came onstage and melodramatically made the shocking announcement amidst the applause. “No, no. This is tragic. You don’t understand. Gower Champion died this morning.”

Here, Marge and Gower Champion dance in the final scene of “Lovely to Look At” in 1952

Due to a simple ploy by George Lineberry — a talented young white dancer — black music found its way onto the jukeboxes in the white dance halls and pavilions along the Carolina beaches after World War II

Due to a simple ploy by George Lineberry — a talented young white dancer — black music found its way onto the jukeboxes in the white dance halls and pavilions along the Carolina beaches after World War II.

“Big George,” as he was nicknamed, was hired to install records on the coin-operated jukeboxes, then called “piccolos,” for a local amusements company in Myrtle Beach.

Lineberry was told which records to place on specific jukeboxes. Playlists were strict in this time of segregation. Black music in the day was forbidden from the jukeboxes in white establishments and was designated for black clubs only.

Lineberry ignored his bosses and took it upon himself to switch records, placing the most popular black records from the jukeboxes in the black clubs, including the infamous Charlie’s Place, to the jukeboxes in the white dance halls.

It was at Charlie’s Place that a handful of adventurous young black & white dancers — with the help of a fearless black nightclub owner named Charlie Fitzgerald — risked their lives due to a threat from the Ku Klux Klan not to mix races. Defying the segregationists, they created a new dance and an enduring Southern musical legacy.

It was this quiet switcharoo of records at the area’s jukeboxes by Lineberry — and Lineberry alone — that changed music along the Atlantic coast beaches for generations to come.

Big George, who died in 1999 at the age of 76, was an immensely popular fixture at the beach at the time. He was often slipped a few bucks by concerned parents to dance with a daughter who needed a boost in self-esteem. With great ceremony, he made it a point to “test” each new record installation with a personal spin on the dance floor.

He often single handedly introduced new black records to white audiences living in the Jim Crow era of segregation.

Soon after Lineberry serviced the jukeboxes along the Carolina coast, the “forbidden” race music — soon to be called rhythm and blues — could be heard only at the beach joints. It quickly became known as “beach music.”

As a dancer, Lineberry was also a major contributor to what today is known as the “shag,” the state dance of the Carolinas. “I first heard the term shag at Charlie’s Place,” Lineberry, who left the beach in 1948, told me in an interview. “They called it the shag on the Hill (Charlie’s Place). I think the shag and dirty shag came out of Charlie’s nightclub.”

Lineberry, who was a first generation member of the Shaggers Hall of Fame, had warm memories of his nights at Charlie’s Place — many ending at daylight. “Charlie once told me, ‘George, you got a little black in you.’ I knew the black music had a better beat. It would turn me on a little more. I was the best at the belly roll and the dirty shag. I could lay it on them.”

In fact, Lineberry is credited with inventing the belly roll as used in the modern shag.

For young Dino Thompson, the belly roll — or “vertical sex” as it was also called — was the ultimate shag step, a move that was perfected by Lineberry at Charlie’s Place. In his personal memoir, Greek Boy, Thompson offers a description of the belly roll: “Boy pulls girl close enough to touch belly buttons. Then, in rhythm, they throw one leg out together, then the other. Slick and sexy.”

The belly roll and a 10-cent song on the jukebox, recalled Thompson, was “your license for romance. Pick out the girl of your dreams, lead her out to the dance floor, ease her out of a fast sweaty pivot into a tight belly roll and bruise your excited private parts all up against hers. Then, right as the lyrics get down and dirty, burn her down with your Tyrone Power eyes.”

Lineberry later turned his love of music and dance into a career. He owned and operated Southern Amusement Corp. in Virginia Beach, Virginia. An avid shagger until he died, Lineberry later gave his fellow dancers their own jukeboxes loaded with their favorite music as a gift.

Lineberry’s story is in Charlie’s Place, one of the stories in my book, Whitewash: A Southern Journey Through Music, Mayhem and Murder.

All but the young photo of George Lineberry were taken in 1994 by Frank Beacham

Josephine Baker was born 116 years ago today

Josephine Baker was born 116 years ago today.

An American-born dancer, singer and actress, Baker became known as the "Black Pearl," "Bronze Venus" and even the "Creole Goddess."

Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Baker later became a citizen of France in 1937. She was fluent in both English and French. She was the first African-American woman to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), or to become a world-famous entertainer.

Baker, who refused to perform for segregated audiences in America, is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. She was once offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King in 1968, following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Baker, however, turned down the offer.

She was also known for assisting the French Resistance during World War II, and received the French military honor, the Croix de guerre.

A dancer, Baker traveled to Paris for a new venture and opened in "La Revue Nègre" on October 2, 1925 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an instant success for her erotic dancing and for appearing practically nude on stage.

After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts. She performed the Danse sauvage, wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas.

Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs that gave birth to the term "Art Deco," and also with a renewal of interest in non-western forms of art, including African.

Baker became the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."

In addition to being a musical star, Baker also starred in three films that found success only in Europe: the silent film, Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). She also starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940.

At this time she also scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931), and became a muse for contemporary authors, painters, designers and sculptors, including Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso and Christian Dior.

Although based in France, Baker supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband, Jo, they were refused reservations at 36 hotels because she was black. She was so upset by the treatment that she wrote articles on the segregation in the United States and began traveling farther south.

She gave a talk at the all-black Fisk University in Nashville, her subject being "France, North Africa and The Equality Of The Races In France." In addition, she refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States even after she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club. (The club eventually met her demands.)

Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate shows in Las Vegas, then one of the most segregated cities in America. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from the Ku Klux Klan but said that she was not afraid of them.

In 1951, Baker made charges of racism against Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in Manhattan, where she alleged that she had been refused service.

Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she did in fact appear there on January 3, 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.

In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr. Baker was the only official female speaker and while wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights."

Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged and both gave brief speeches.

On April 8, 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. The revue, financed notably by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened to rave reviews.

Demand for seating was such that fold-out chairs had to be added to accommodate spectators. The opening-night audience included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli.

Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died at age 68 on April 12, 1975.

Here, Baker is shown doing her Banana Dance in Paris, 1927

Josephine Baker, Paris, circa 1920s

In many of her shows, Baker performed naked, mimicking ‘savage’ animals in her act. In some performances, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, Chiquita, who was adorned with a diamond collar.

The cheetah frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

Photo from Roger-Viollet

Isadora Duncan, dancer, was born 145 years ago today

Photo by Arnold Genthe

Isadora Duncan, dancer, was born 145 years ago today.

Born in California, Duncan lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. She performed to acclaim throughout Europe after being exiled from the United States for her Soviet sympathies.

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor towards her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, when she was a passenger in an Amilcar. Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.

In her early years in the San Francisco area, Duncan attended school but, finding it to be constricting to her individuality, she dropped out. As her family was very poor, both she and her sister gave dance classes to local children to earn extra money.

In 1896, Duncan became part of Augustin Daly's theater company in New York. She soon became disillusioned with the form. Her father, along with his third wife and their daughter, died in the 1898 sinking of the British passenger steamer, SS Mohegan.

Duncan’s different approach to dance was evident in her early classes, in which she “followed [her] fantasy and improvised, teaching any pretty thing that came into [her] head.”

A desire to travel brought Duncan to Chicago where she auditioned for many theater companies, finally finding a place in Augustin Daly's company. This job took her to New York City where her unique vision of dance clashed with the popular pantomimes of theater companies.

Feeling unhappy and limited with her work in Daly’s company and with American audiences, Duncan decided to move to London in 1898. There she found work performing in the drawing rooms of the wealthy and inspiration from the Greek vases and bas-reliefs in the British Museum. The money she earned from these engagements allowed her to rent a dance studio to develop her work and create larger performances for the stage.

From London, Duncan traveled to Paris, where she drew inspiration from the Louvre and the Exhibition of 1900. One day in 1902, Loie Fuller visited Duncan’s studio and invited Duncan to tour with her. This took Duncan all over Europe creating new works using her innovative dance technique.

Duncan’s style consisted of a focus on natural movement instead of the rigid technique of ballet. She spent most of the rest of her life in this manner, touring in Europe as well as North and South America, where she performed to mixed critical reviews.

Duncan became quite popular for her distinct style and inspired many visual artists, such as Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin and Abraham Walkowitz to create works based on her.

Duncan disliked the commercial aspects of public performance, like touring and contracts, because she felt they distracted her from her real mission — the creation of beauty and the education of the young. To achieve her mission, she opened schools to teach young women her dance philosophy. The first was established in 1904 in Grunewald, Germany.

This institution was the birthplace of the "Isadorables" – Anna, Maria-Theresa, Irma, Lisel, Gretel, Erika, Isabelle and Temple (Isadora's niece) – Duncan’s protégées, who would go on to continue her legacy. In 1914, Duncan moved to the United States and transferred the school there.

A townhouse on Gramercy Park was provided for its use, and its studio was nearby, on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue, which is now Park Avenue South.

Otto Kahn, the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. gave Duncan use of the very modern Century Theatre at West 60th Street and Central Park West for her performances and productions, which included a staging of Oedipus Rex, which involved almost all of Duncan's extended entourage and friends.

Duncan wrote of American dancing: “let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.” Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique. Duncan also cites the sea as an early inspiration for her movement.

By the end of her life, Duncan's performing career had dwindled and she became as notorious for her financial woes, scandalous love life and all-too-frequent public drunkenness as for her contributions to the arts. She spent her final years moving between Paris and the Mediterranean, running up debts at hotels.

Duncan spent short periods in apartments rented on her behalf by a decreasing number of friends and supporters, many of whom attempted to assist her in writing an autobiography. They hoped it might be successful enough to support her.

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor towards her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, at the age of 50. On the night of September 14, 1927, Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed "Buggatti.” Her silk scarf draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.

As The New York Times noted in its obituary: "Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement."

The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous.”

Here is a short video of Isadora Duncan dancers

Scatman Crothers was born 112 years ago today

Scatman Crothers was born 112 years ago today.

An actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show, Chico and the Man, Crothers also played Dick Hallorann in the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining, in 1980.

Crothers was also a prolific voiceover artist, and provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the animated TV version of The Harlem Globetrotters, Jazz the Autobot in The Transformers, the title character in Hong Kong Phooey and Scat Cat in the 1970 animated Disney film, The Aristocats.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Crothers got the nickname “Scatman” when he auditioned for a radio show in 1932 at the former WSMK (now WING) in Dayton, Ohio. The director didn't think his given name Benjamin was catchy enough, so Crothers quickly concocted the handle, Scat Man, although this talent, scat singing, would develop later. He continued to enjoy this talent throughout his career, even teaching scat singing to college students.

Later, the nickname was condensed to Scatman by Arthur Godfrey. In his early career, he also associated with many Cleveland-based acts.

Crothers started his musical career as a 15-year-old drummer in a speakeasy band in his home town of Terre Haute. He played a variety of instruments, including drums and guitar, on jazz club band circuits in his early days as an entertainer. Among the people for whom he performed was the notorious gangster, Al Capone.

Crothers formed his own band in the 1930s and traveled to Oakland, California with the band in 1948. He played piano at the Port O' Call and Walt's 405 Club. He also appeared in a 1950 episode of The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Radio Program performing "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" with Harris, who introduced him as Scatman Roth. He left Oakland to stay in Los Angeles in 1952.

Crothers made his official debut in the movie, Meet Me at the Fair (1953). He worked in both movies and television, often taking bit parts. He also made musical shorts and played drums with Slim Gaillard in the mid-1940s. Crothers then landed a major supporting role in the 1970 animated film, The Aristocats, from Walt Disney Productions, providing the voice of "Scat Cat."

He also performed the film's theme song, "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat." Good friends with Jack Nicholson, he appeared in four of his films: The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), The Fortune (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Shining (1980).

A heavy smoker most of his life, Crothers was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 1985. But he kept his condition a secret in order to continue working. The cancer eventually spread to his esophagus by mid-1986 and he was unable to speak.

He died of pneumonia on November 22, 1986 at his home in Van Nuys, California at age 76.

Here Crothers performs in “The Shining” in 1980. He explains what the Shine is.

Actress Betty Garrett was born 103 years ago today

Betty Garrett: A Personal Story

Garrett, born 103 years ago today, was an actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While there, she appeared in several musical films before returning to Broadway and making guest appearances on several television series.

Later, she became known for the roles she played in two prominent 1970s sitcoms: Archie Bunker's liberal neighbor, Irene Lorenzo, in All in the Family and landlady, Edna Babish, in Laverne & Shirley.

Very early in her career, Garrett also performed with Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre company during the production of Danton’s Death in the 1930s. Her fellow cast members were Joseph Cotten, Ruth Ford, Martin Gabel and Arlene Francis.

In 2001, Garrett returned to Broadway to perform in a revival of Follies at the Belasco Theatre in New York.

I wanted to interview Garrett for an Orson Welles project I was working on. So I sent a letter and flowers to her backstage at the theatre. It worked!

After a performance of Follies, Ms. Garrett invited me, along with my writing partner, George Demas, to a coffee shop near the theatre. She was gracious and talkative and we had wonderful evening.

One story sticks with me. Garrett made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue, Of V We Sing. One day while sitting in her dressing room, a security guard called her and said two kids who were trying to sneak into the theatre had used her name when they were caught. She asked the guard to bring them to her dressing room.

Garrett said the young men had no money, but had wanted to see her perform. Instead, they got caught.

Feeling sorry for them, Garrett told them to come back at performance time and she would leave their names and comp tickets at the box office. The kids got very excited and thanked her profusely. Garrett forgot about the incident.

Thirty-one years later, in the fall of 1973, while grocery shopping in LA, a man approached her in the market and told her he was one of the kids she had let in the theatre in New York. Moved, she gave the man tickets for he and his friend to a one-person show she was doing in LA. at the time.

After that show, the two men came back stage to meet her. They told her they were now writers for the hit sitcom, All in the Family, and asked her to audition for a new regular cast member on the show. She auditioned and got the part. This, she said, opened the door to an entire new second career for her on television.

The moral to the story, she said, is to be nice to everyone along life’s journey. You never know when the smallest act of kindness will change your future and result in a profound effect on your life.

Betty Garrett died of an aortic aneurysm in Los Angeles on February 12, 2011 at the age of 91.

Her autobiography, Betty Garrett and Other Songs: A Life on Stage and Screen, is outstanding. It is a book about life in the theatre and the cruel damage done by the Hollywood Blacklist.

A great read!

Above is Garrett with Jack Lemon in My Sister Eileen, 1955

Fred Astaire was born 123 years ago today

Fred Astaire was born 123 years ago today.

Astaire was a film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer, musician and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years — during which he made 31 musical films.

He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films. Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire.”

Beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged Astaire’s importance and influence.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Astaire was the son of Johanna "Ann" and Frederic "Fritz" Austerlitz (born September 8, 1868, as Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz). His mother was born in the United States, to Lutheran German immigrants from East Prussia and Alsace. His father was born in Linz, Austria, to Jewish parents, who had converted to Catholicism.

When his father suddenly lost his job, Astaire and his family moved to New York City in 1905 to launch the show business career of the children, who began training at the Alviene Master School of the Theatre and Academy of Cultural Arts. Despite Adele and Fred's teasing rivalry, they quickly acknowledged their individual strengths, his durability and her greater talent.

Fred and Adele's mother suggested they change their name to "Astaire," as she felt "Austerlitz" sounded as though it could be the name of a battle. Family legend attributes the name to an uncle surnamed "L'Astaire.”

They were taught dance, speaking and singing in preparation for developing an act. Their first act was called Juvenile Artists Presenting an Electric Musical Toe-Dancing Novelty. Fred wore a top hat and tails in the first half and a lobster outfit in the second.

As a result of their father's salesmanship, Fred and Adele rapidly landed a major contract and played the famed Orpheum Circuit not only in Omaha but throughout the United States. Soon Adele grew to at least three inches taller than Fred and the pair began to look incongruous. The family decided to take a two-year break from show business to let time take its course and to avoid trouble from the Gerry Society and the child labor laws of the era.

The career of the Astaire siblings resumed with mixed fortunes, though with increasing skill and polish, as they began to incorporate tap dancing into their routines. Astaire's dancing was inspired by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and John "Bubbles" Sublett. From vaudeville dancer Aurelio Coccia they learned the tango, waltz and other ballroom dances popularized by Vernon and Irene Castle.

By age 14, Fred had taken on the musical responsibilities for their act. He first met George Gershwin, who was working as a song plugger for Jerome H. Remick in 1916. Fred had already been hunting for new music and dance ideas. Their chance meeting was to deeply affect the careers of both artists.

Astaire was always on the lookout for new steps on the circuit and was starting to demonstrate his ceaseless quest for novelty and perfection. The Astaires broke into Broadway in 1917 with Over the Top, a patriotic revue. The Astaires performed for U.S. and Allied troops at this time too. They followed up with several more shows, and of their work in "The Passing Show of 1918.”

By this time, Astaire's dancing skill was beginning to outshine his sister's, though she still set the tone of their act and her sparkle and humor drew much of the attention, due in part to Fred's careful preparation and strong supporting choreography.

During the 1920s, Fred and Adele appeared on Broadway and on the London stage in shows such as George and Ira Gershwin's Lady Be Good (1924), Funny Face (1927) and later in The Band Wagon (1931). They won popular acclaim with the theater crowd on both sides of the Atlantic.

After the close of Funny Face, the Astaires went to Hollywood for a screen test (now lost) at Paramount Pictures, but were not considered suitable for films. They split in 1932 when Adele got married.

Fred Astaire went on to achieve success on his own on Broadway and in London with Gay Divorce, while considering offers from Hollywood. The end of the partnership was traumatic for Astaire, but stimulated him to expand his range.

Free of the brother-sister constraints of the former pairing and with a new partner (Claire Luce), he created a romantic partnered dance to Cole Porter's "Night and Day," which had been written for Gay Divorce.

Astaire and Ginger Rogers were then paired by RKO and made ten films together, including The Gay Divorcee, Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937) and Carefree (1938). Six out of the nine Astaire-Rogers musicals became the biggest moneymakers for RKO. All of the films brought a certain prestige and artistry that all studios coveted at the time.

The Astaire-Rogers partnership elevated them both to stardom. "He gives her class and she gives him sex appeal," Katherine Hepburn said.

Astaire received a percentage of the films' profits, something extremely rare in actors' contracts at that time. He also got complete autonomy over how the dances would be presented, allowing him to revolutionize dance on film.

Astaire is credited with important innovations in early film musicals. He insisted that the (almost stationary) camera film a dance routine in a single shot, if possible, while holding the dancers in full view at all times. Astaire famously quipped: "Either the camera will dance, or I will."

Astaire maintained this policy from The Gay Divorcee (1934) onwards (until overruled by Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Finian's Rainbow (1968), Astaire's last film musical).

Astaire's style of dance sequences thus contrasted with the Busby Berkeley musicals, which were known for dance sequences filled with extravagant aerial shots, quick takes and zooms on certain areas of the body, such as the arms or legs.

Astaire was also adamant that all song and dance routines be seamlessly integrated into the plot lines of the film. Instead of using dance as spectacle as Busby Berkeley did, Astaire used it to move the plot along.

Typically, an Astaire picture would include a solo performance by Astaire — which he termed his "sock solo" — a partnered comedy dance routine, and a partnered romantic dance routine.

Astaire had a long and successful career. After announcing his retirement in 1946, he concentrated on his horse-racing interests and, in 1947, founded the Fred Astaire Dance Studios. He sold the enterprise in 1966.

Astaire never retired from dancing. In his last major musical film, Finian's Rainbow, he shed his white tie and tails to play an Irish rogue who believes if he buries a crock of gold in the shadows of Fort Knox it will multiply. His dance partner was Petula Clark, who portrayed his skeptical daughter.

Astaire continued to act into the 1970s, appearing on television as the father of Robert Wagner's character of Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief. He also appeared in The Towering Inferno (1974), in which he danced with Jennifer Jones. For that performance, he received his only Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Astaire died in June, 1987 at 88 years old.

Here, is Astaire and Rogers in “Swing Time”

Audrey Hepburn was born 93 years ago today

On this day in 1929 — 93 years ago — Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, who would one day be better known to legions of film fans as Audrey Hepburn, was born near Brussels, Belgium.

The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, Hepburn was attending school in London when World War II erupted in Europe. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland, where the young Audrey and her mother were staying. The family suffered many hardships.

Hepburn continued to pursue her ballet studies, and at war’s end, she returned to London, where she modeled and began acting in small parts on stage and screen. In 1951, Hepburn was “discovered” by the French writer, Colette, while in Monaco shooting a film.

Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novel, Gigi, and the young actress made her Broadway debut that same year. Hepburn’s success in Gigi led directly to her being cast as the lead in the 1953 film, Roman Holiday.

For her portrayal of a headstrong young princess who falls in love with a journalist (played by Gregory Peck) while on the loose in Rome, Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress the same year, for her starring turn in Ondine.

Over the next decade, Hepburn proved herself more than a match for Hollywood’s top leading men in such hits as Sabrina (1954, with William Holden and Humphrey Bogart), Funny Face (1957, with Fred Astaire) and Love in the Afternoon (1957, with Gary Cooper).

As the inimitable Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Hepburn earned her fourth Oscar nod for Best Actress (she was also nominated for Sabrina and 1959’s A Nun’s Story).

She sparked a controversy when she was picked to star as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of the musical, My Fair Lady (1964). Hepburn beat out Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on Broadway.

Three years later, Hepburn scored a fifth Academy Award nomination for Wait Until Dark, a film that was produced by her then-husband, Mel Ferrer, who she married in 1954.

She left full-time acting shortly thereafter (though she would continue to appear sporadically in movies, notably as Maid Marian opposite Sean Connery’s Robin Hood in 1976’s Robin and Marian) and spent most of her time at her home in Switzerland.

Hepburn and Ferrer, who had two sons, divorced in 1968. Hepburn then married Andrea Dotti, an Italian psychiatrist, the following year. They had one son together. After divorcing Dotti, Hepburn began a relationship in 1980 with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor.

In her semi-retirement from acting, Hepburn devoted most of her energy to charitable causes, most notably UNICEF — the United Nation’s children’s fund — for which she was named a special ambassador in 1988. Hepburn’s field trips for UNICEF took her around the globe, from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador, to Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh and Sudan.

She was also an eloquent public voice for the organization, helping to raise money and awareness for its work by speaking before the U.S. Congress, among other venues. In 1992, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Hepburn made her final film appearance in Steven Spielberg’s film, Always (1989), in which she played an angel. In 1992, shortly after returning from a UNICEF trip to Somalia, Hepburn was diagnosed with colon cancer.

After undergoing surgery that November, she died on January 20, 1993, at her home near Lausanne, Switzerland, at the age of 63.

Thanks History.com

Here is Hepburn with Gregory Peck in a clip from Roman Holiday, 1953

Ann-Margret is 81 years old today

Ann-Margret dances with Elvis Presley

Ann-Margret is 81 years old today.

Ann-Margret Olsson is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She is best known for her roles in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Viva Las Vegas (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Tommy (1975). Her singing career spans five decades, like her acting career. She started in 1961.

Initially, she was billed as a female version of Elvis Presley. She had a minor hit in 1961 and a charting album in 1964, and scored a disco hit in 1979. In 2001, she recorded a critically acclaimed gospel album, and an album of Christmas songs from 2004 continues to be available.

And Here She Is: Ann-Margret, her debut album, was produced in Nashville with Chet Atkins on guitar, the Jordanaires (Elvis Presley's backup singers) and the Anita Kerr Singers. The liner notes were by her mentor, George Burns.

She had a sexy, throaty singing voice, and RCA attempted to capitalize on the “female Elvis” comparison by having her record a version of "Heartbreak Hotel" and other songs stylistically similar to Presley's.

She scored the minor hit, "I Just Don't Understand," from her second album, which entered the Billboard Top 40 in the third week of August, 1961 and stayed six weeks. It peaked at #17. In 1961, she filmed a screen test at 20th Century Fox and was signed to a seven-year contract.

Ann-Margret made her film debut in a loan-out to United Artists in Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis. It was a remake of the 1933 movie, Lady for a Day. Both versions were directed by Frank Capra. Then came a 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, State Fair, playing the "bad girl" role of Emily opposite Bobby Darin and Pat Boone.

She had tested for the part of Margy, the "good girl," but she seemed too seductive to the studio bosses, who decided on the switch. The two roles mimicked her real-life personality — shy and reserved offstage, but wildly exuberant and sensuous onstage.

As she summed up in her autobiography, she would easily transform herself from "Little Miss Lollipop to Sexpot-Banshee" once she stepped on stage and the music began. Her next starring role, as the all-American teenager, Kim, from Sweet Apple, Ohio, in Bye Bye Birdie (1963) made her a major star.

The premiere at Radio City Music Hall, 16 years after her first visit to the famed theater, was a smash hit. It was the highest first-week grossing film to date at that venue. Life magazine put her on the cover for the second time and announced that the "torrid dancing almost replaces the central heating in the theater.”

She was asked to sing "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home" at President John F. Kennedy's private birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria — one year after Marilyn Monroe's famous, "Happy Birthday."

Ann-Margret met Elvis Presley on the MGM soundstage when the two filmed Viva Las Vegas in 1964. She recorded three duets with Presley for the film, "The Lady Loves Me," "You're The Boss" and a duet version with Presley of his song, "Today, Tomorrow, and Forever."

Only "The Lady Loves Me" made it into the final film and none of which were commercially released until years after Presley's death, due to concerns by Colonel Tom Parker that Ann-Margret's presence threatened to overshadow Elvis. Ann-Margret introduced Presley to David Winters, whom she recommended as a choreographer for their film.

Viva Las Vegas was Winters' first feature film choreography job and was his first of four movies with Presley and his first of five films, including Kitten with a Whip (1964), Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965), Made in Paris (1966) and The Swinger (1966). He also did two TV specials with Ann-Margret.

While working on the film, Once a Thief (1965), she met future husband, Roger Smith, who, after his successful run on the private-eye television series, 77 Sunset Strip, was performing a live club show at the Hungry i on a bill with Bill Cosby and Don Adams. That meeting began their courtship, which met with resistance from her parents.

Ann-Margret starred in The Cincinnati Kid in 1965 opposite Steve McQueen. She also co-starred along with friend, Dean Martin, in the spy spoof, Murderers' Row (1966). Finally, she starred as the lead in The Swinger in 1966 with Tony Franciosa.

Her red hair-color (she is a "natural brunette") was the idea of Sydney Guilaroff, a hairdresser who changed the hair-color of other famous actresses such as Lucille Ball. She was offered the title role in Cat Ballou (1965), but her manager turned it down without telling her.

In March, 1966, Ann-Margret and entertainers Chuck Day and Mickey Jones teamed up for a USO tour to entertain U.S. servicemen in remote parts of Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia. She still has great affection for the veterans and refers to them as "my gentlemen."

During a lull in her film career in July, 1967, Ann-Margret gave her first live performance in Las Vegas, with her husband Roger Smith (whom she had married in 1967) taking over as her manager after that engagement.

Elvis Presley and his entourage came to see her during the show's five-week run and to celebrate backstage. From thereon until his death, Presley sent her a guitar-shaped floral arrangement for each of her Vegas openings.

After the first Vegas run ended, she followed up with a CBS television special, "The Ann-Margret Show," produced and directed by David Winters on December 1, 1968. The guests were Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Danny Thomas and Carol Burnett.

In 1971, she starred in Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge, playing the over-loving girlfriend of a viciously abusive Jack Nicholson and garnering a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

On the set of The Train Robbers in Durango, Mexico, in June, 1972, she told Nancy Anderson of Copley News Service that she had been on the "grapefruit diet" and had lost almost twenty pounds (134 to 115) eating unsweetened citrus.

On Sunday, September 10, 1972, while performing at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, she fell 22 feet from an elevated platform to the stage and suffered injuries including a broken left arm, cheekbone and jawbone.

Husband Roger Smith flew a stolen plane from Burbank, California, to Lake Tahoe in order to get his wife to the surgeons at the medical center at UCLA for treatment. She required meticulous facial reconstructive surgery that required wiring her mouth shut and putting her on a liquid diet. Unable to work for ten weeks, she ultimately returned to the stage almost (some would say miraculously) back to normal.

Throughout the 1970s, Ann-Margret balanced her live musical performances with a string of dramatic film roles that played against her glamorous image.

In 1973, she starred with John Wayne in The Train Robbers. Then came the musical, Tommy, in 1975, directed by Ken Russell. For that film, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

On August 17, 1977, Ann-Margret and Roger Smith traveled to Memphis to attend Elvis Presley's funeral. Three months later, she hosted Memories Of Elvis featuring abridged versions of the Elvis 1968 TV and Aloha from Hawaii specials.

In 1982, Ann-Margret co-starred with Walter Matthau and Dinah Manoff in the film version of Neil Simon's play, I Ought to Be in Pictures. That same year, she appeared with a six-year-old Angelina Jolie in Lookin' to Get Out, playing Jolie's mother.

She has been married to Roger Smith since May 8, 1967. Prior to this she was romantically linked to Elvis Presley during the filming of Viva Las Vegas. She rode a 500 cc Triumph T100C Tiger motorcycle in The Swinger (1966) and used the same model, fitted with a non-standard electric starter, in her stage show and her TV specials.

A keen motorcyclist, she was featured in Triumph Motorcycles' official advertisements in the 1960s. She suffered three broken ribs and a fractured shoulder when she was thrown off a motorcycle she was riding in rural Minnesota in 2000.

In the 2005 CBS miniseries, Elvis, she is portrayed by Rose McGowan, in which her affair with Elvis Presley (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is depicted during the filming of Viva Las Vegas.

Here is Ann-Margret in the classic “beans and chocolate” scene from Ken Russell’s 1975 film, Tommy