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Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in Top Hat
BILL ROBINSON
developed his famous ‘stair dance’ in the 1920s. Although he was not the first to dance on stairs, he refined his routine to an unprecedented height of artistry. He made several films with Shirley Temple, and was still performing the stair dance
in his early seventies, when he appeared in the all-black Hollywood musical Stormy Weather (1943).
ELEANOR POWELL
many have claimed that Powell was the world’s
greatest female tap dancer. She is said to have achieved five taps per second after only a few lessons. Her films included Broadway Melody of 1940, where she danced a marvellous ‘Begin the Beguine’ with Astaire.
VERA-ELLEN
one of the finest dancers
on film in the 1940s and 50s. In Words and Music (1948), she and Gene Kelly provided the film’s highpoint with the classic ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’ sequence.
GENE KELLY
actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, director, producer and teacher, the ceaselessly inventive Kelly was largely responsible for two of the most priceless jewels in Hollywood musical history – An American in Paris (1951) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Kelly styled himself the proletarian to Astaire’s aristocrat: ‘an “ordinary
Joe” in sports shirt, slacks and white socks (to draw attention to the feet)’.
