Lindy Hop dancer and comedian John "Tiny" Bunch was known for his dancing with Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in movies such as A Day at the Races (1937). However, he was also known for his size. Weighing over 300 pounds, Bunch was still incredibly graceful and agile, and particularly clean and energetic in his dancing. Bunch's physical demeanor was also contrasted by his dance partner, Dorothy "Dot" Moses, who weighed only 90 pounds and supposedly "looked like a little dot" next to him.
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Shorty George Snowden was an African American dancer in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s who was known for his signature "Shorty George" step. This step was a perfect example of his flair for comedy, as it involved Snowden bending his knees, pointing his fingers downward, and swinging from side to side. It also exaggerated height (or lack thereof), as he stood at barely five feet tall. Snowden is also often given credit for coining the name Lindy Hop. Apparently, Snowden was improvising a step during a 1928 charity dance marathon in New York, and when a reporter asked him what he was doing, Snowden responded, "I'm doin' the Hop... the Lindy Hop."
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American dancer, instructor, and choreographer Frankie Manning was a leading dancer at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. Manning is credited with revolutionizing the genre of Lindy Hop with his innovations, which included the Lindy air step and the synchronized ensemble Lindy routine. Manning's style of dancing stood out even among the greats of the time, as he was exceptionally fast on his feet, commonly danced at sharp angles, and added a ton of physical expression and excitement to his performances. In addition to developing his own unique style, when Whitey's Lindy Hoppers were in their heyday, Manning was the chief choreographer, serving as what we today would call artistic director.
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Lena Horne was an African American pop singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Her performance career began at the age of 16 when she joined the chorus of the Cotton Club in order to support her family financially. Eventually Horne signed a contract with MGM and she soon became known as one of the top African American performers of the time. Unfortunately, some of the films in which she was cast featured Horne in smaller roles that could easily be cut from the movies when they were shown in theaters in the South. Horne made an active effort to avoid roles like these and then proceeded to land a part in the all-black musical Stormy Weather (1943). After Horne's political activism took off, however, it became very difficult for her to find roles in Hollywood and she was basically blacklisted.
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Norma Miller is one of the most famous women of early swing dancing, and one of Whitey's best and most charismatic dancers. Miller began her career at the Savoy Ballroom in 1934, which got her discovered and led to her being the youngest member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers at age 15. Miller has continued in show business all her life, moving from performing as a dancer to taking a solo performance tour to working in comedy. A vivacious and outspoken person, she was and still is always the life of every party. Even after Whitey's Lindy Hoppers disbanded, Miller founded her own company to teach young people to dance, called Norma Miller's Dance Company.
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Norma Shearer, a Canadian-American actress and Hollywood star, was initially always cast as an ingenue, but ultimately her talents were discovered in the portrayal of more sexually liberated women. Shearer is even considered by historians as "the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards". However, despite her natural sexuality, she was deemed too unattractive for many roles, particularly due to her crossed eyes (a condition caused by muscle weakness). Ultimately, in marrying MGM's studio chief Irving Thalberg, Shearer received the career boost she needed and went on to star in many films to come, some of which earned her award nominations and wins.
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American actress and singer Alice Faye launched her stage career while still a teenager, and she retained success and popularity until she retired at what was arguably the peak of her career. Faye began in vaudeville as a chorus girl until she signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox and became a star almost immediately with George White's Scandals (1934). After signing, Faye received a physical makeover, swapping out her platinum hair and pencil-line eyebrows for a more natural look, but she also had the make the transition from wisecracking showgirl to youthful ingenue or motherly figure. Faye's talents were primarily based in her musicality, but she was given plenty of dramatic roles as well until she settled into early retirement on her own terms with her husband.
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Joan Crawford was an American film and television actress who, in 1999, was ranked tenth on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Crawford started as a dancer and chorus girl before signing a movie contract with MGM in 1925. This sophisticated and confident performer often (and appropriately) played hardworking female characters who ultimately find romance and success. Similarly, Crawford would take it into her own hands to attain celebrity. According to MGM screenwriter Frederica Sagor Maas, "No one decided to make Joan Crawford a star. Joan Crawford became a star because Joan Crawford decided to become a star." Crawford's portrayals were well-received by Depression-era audiences and women in particular, but the money her films were taking in began to steadily decrease, ultimately resulting in Crawford being labeled as "box office poison." Nonetheless, Crawford had a long-lasting film career, starring in over five dozen films in her lifetime.
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Best known for her portrayal of Lucy Ricardo in I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball created for herself a full career of acting, comedy, modeling, and producing. Ball signed with MGM in the 1940s and soon became known in Hollywood as the "Queen of B's" due to the number of roles she played in movies that just weren't up to par. Ultimately, however, Ball expanded her career and exposure by working in radio and eventually debuted I Love Lucy with her husband Desi Arnaz in 1951. For four of its seasons, I Love Lucy was the number one sitcom in the country. Ball also became the first woman to run a major television studio through founding Desilu Productions with Arnaz. Even through ups and downs with her husband/screen partner/co-worker, Ball retained success as the star of the show and she was loved by millions. On her experience entering the comedy world, Ball said, “A lot of the really beautiful girls didn't want to do some of the things I did—put on mud packs and scream and run around and fall into pools ... I didn't mind getting messed up. That's how I got into physical comedy.”
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Eleanor Powell was an American dancer and actress known to the world as one of MGM's top dancing stars during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Powell was discovered by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie Revue at the age of 11, who then brought her to Broadway when she was 17. Early on, Powell was considered to be "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork. However, she initially preferred ballet and acrobatics, avoiding tap as long as possible. Ultimately she lost many musical roles in New York because she didn't know how to tap, inspiring Powell to take it into her own hands to learn. Unlike most other film dancers of her day, Powell choreographed all her own numbers. In addition, because of her dominating style and commanding virtuosity, she was not generally cast opposite male dancers. Instead, Powell was placed in roles in which her “independent woman” persona was showcased in solo dance routines. Only Fred Astaire was her onscreen equal.
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Hedda Hopper began as an actress and chorus girl, despite being rejected by Florenz Ziegfeld early on because he deemed her a "clumsy cow." Hopper made her big screen debut in 1916 and went on to appear in over 100 films in the next three decades. By the 1930s, however, Hopper became known as the "Queen of Quickies" because she appeared as very small roles in a large number of films. When her career started to wane, Hopper found another source of income as a gossip columnist. Entitled "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood," the column was notorious for her unabashed critiques of other Hollywood stars and their fashion choices. Hopper's column was also known to be a prominent part of the Hollywood blacklisting era, as she used it to speak out against Communism and stars who may or may not be Communists.
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June Havoc was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theatre director. She got her start as a child by appearing in vaudeville with her sister Louise, eventually moving to Hollywood. Apparently, Havoc couldn't speak until the age of three, but that wasn't a problem because she was working in silent films. Havoc and her sister have been immortalized in the musical Gypsy, which was based on Louise's memoirs and detailed their lives as young vaudeville stars pushed into performing by their mother. Havoc's performance career after childhood was very hit-and-miss, occasionally striking gold with an interesting acting opportunity, but very often being stuck in shallower B movies. Havoc eventually moved her focus to playwriting and directing, earning her a Tony nomination in 1964.
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Betty Grable was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, and singer who ranked as the highest-salaried American woman in 1946 and 1947 and was best known for her legs. She supposedly insured her legs for one million dollars as a publicity stunt, and it worked - Grable's success as a pin-up girl only furthered her movie career. Grable signed with producer Samuel Goldwyn at age 13, soon becoming one of the original Goldwyn Girls. She spent most of her youth in small uncredited roles, and when Grable signed with Paramount Pictures she was primarily cast as innocent and naïve co-eds in college-aimed movies. After a string of B movies, Grable really hit her stride in the 1939 Broadway musical DuBarry Was a Lady, gaining the attention of 20th Century Fox. After her Hollywood film debut in Down Argentine Way (1940), Grable appeared in a number of popular movies and musicals, becoming Fox's biggest film star and the number one box office draw in the world.
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Canadian-born American actress, dancer, and singer Ruby Keeler began her performance career in dance school at the age of 12. She went on to appear as a singer and dancer in local clubs, and before a year had passed Keeler was appearing in 2 to 3 clubs a night and she had become the family breadwinner. She made her film debut as an aspiring showgirl in 42nd Street (1933), and after that was often cast in Warner Bros films in which she was featured as the centerpiece of elaborate dance routines. Although Keeler later claimed, "I couldn't act. I had that terrible singing voice, and now I can see I wasn't the greatest tap dancer in the world, either," her sincere and spirited portrayals of sweet, mostly working-class, ingenues trying to get a break touched a chord with audiences during the height of the Depression.
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Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer was discovered by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn in the early 1940s due to her striking beauty and talent as a performer. Mayo commonly portrayed the girl-next-door type character and she was generally considered to be the quintessential depiction of Hollywood beauty. Mayo's success and popularity increased with every performance, ultimately allowing her to stray a little from her more wholesome portrayals to a tougher persona in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Mayo's career started to come to a close at the end of the 1950s with many mediocre roles. Although she appeared in many musicals throughout her career, showcasing her dance abilities, Mayo's voice was always dubbed.
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