“No. I dreamed of becoming a ballerina and performing with the New York City Ballet.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, my parents had a very ugly divorce when I was fifteen. My father was very powerful in the movie industry and managed to pretty much shaft my mother financially. This happened around the time that I was planning to go to New York to audition for George Balanchine. My mother was in such a bad psychological state, I just couldn’t leave her.”
“And your ballet dream?”
“Well, I remained committed to my dream and even more serious about my training. My mother allowed me to drop out of school and take ballet class every day, all day, except for Sundays. Later, when I wanted to move to New York to pursue my ballet career, she refused to leave Los Angeles. And I couldn’t get myself to go without her. Meanwhile, money was getting tight and I had to find a job.”
“That’s when you broke into the movies?”
“Yes, at that time what you did was join the Screen Extras’ Guild. Central casting would call you for an audition or a job. Usually that meant you’d get called to be in the background of a movie. I hated it. I wanted to be dancing. Finally I said to my mother, ‘If they don’t give me a dance call, then they can expel me from the union. I don’t care. I’m a dancer, not an extra.’ It just so happened that our neighbor was the union liaison for Columbia Studios. My mother asked him to intervene and suddenly I started getting small dance parts in the chorus of feature films.”
“What happened next?”
“One of Jack Cole’s dancers saw me dance and arranged for an audition with Jack at MGM. He liked me and gave me a job in the chorus of the film Kismet. Eventually I became one of his five regular dancers—four boys and me. I danced in Designing Woman, Delores Grey, and Les Girls.”
“Is it true that Jack Cole was tough on everyone?”
“Yes. Jack Cole was sadistic. He’d start rehearsals at 9:00 A.M. and not break for hours. He worked you until you collapsed. I’d be so exhausted I couldn’t get up off the floor. I’d be lying there heaving, gasping for air. He’d tell you what he wanted, but make you figure out how to do it yourself. And he insisted that we rehearse wearing close to nothing. If it were legal to be naked, we would’ve been naked. He wanted to be able to see the lines of the body. We couldn’t even wear a T-shirt. I usually wore a simple bandanna tied around my top and short shorts.”
“Would you say that in working with him you made a big shift from classical ballet to jazz?”
“I didn’t really think of it in terms of making a shift. Jack Cole gave me a movement vocabulary to express how the music made me feel. I had it in me—in my gut—to move that way. You either have a feeling for jazz or you don’t. No amount of technique class will give it to you. You have to be able to groove inherently.”
“When did you meet Fred Astaire?”
“Fred Astaire was working on the film Silk Stockings with Cyd Charisse in an adjacent soundstage at MGM. We were rehearsing some number and Fred kept sticking his head in, no doubt attracted by the sound of the drums. Jack liked to rehearse with a drummer as well as a pianist. Then one day I saw Fred talking to Jack. Later Jack came over to me and said, ‘Fred wants you to do a number in Silk Stockings. What do you say?’ ‘Sure,’ I told him. So Jack loaned me out for a solo in the film, and less than a year later Fred invited me to dance on his first TV special.”
“What was it like working with two of the greatest dance artists of that era?”
“Jack, Fred, and I became very close friends. We used to go out drinking together at this little joint near central casting. But Jack always drank too much. It would be his undoing. He was a terribly frustrated man because for all his brilliance, his work never showed up on the screen like it was in rehearsal—never. The cameraman didn’t shoot it right or the editor didn’t cut it right, and it ate Jack up inside. Instead of fighting with the producer, director, or editor, he would just drink.”
“How did you end up dancing on Fred Astaire’s TV special?”
“One night when we were out for drinks, Fred asked me if I was serious about dance. I thought, what a hilarious question. Here I was killing myself with Jack Cole, enduring his physical torture. I’d have to be crazy if I weren’t serious about dance. Then he said, ‘I think I’m going to do a television show for NBC. Would you like to do it?’ ‘Sure,’ I told him. I had no idea that he meant for me to be his partner. At that time I hadn’t danced for about a year. I was feeling like I’d never break out of the chorus. I was preparing to give it all up for an acting career. Fred told me to meet him at a studio where he and Hermes Pan were working on the choreography for the show. I arrived thinking that I was there to assist. I remember being totally shocked when during one of the numbers it hit me—I’m not here to assist. He means for me to be his partner.”
“What does it feel like to dance with Fred Astaire?”
“It spoils you, Rose. I can tell you that. Fred was a perfectionist. If something was wrong with the choreography, he’d figure out a way to make it right. One time we were having trouble with a step and the next morning he came in and said, ‘I think I have it figured out. I got up last night and I worked it out.’ ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You mean you got out of bed in the middle of the night and worked on it?’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I figured it out.’ He didn’t think anything of working on something in the middle of the night. That’s how he was. Not me, once I’m in bed, I might try to work it out in my head, but I’m too bloody tired to get out of bed and dance at two or three in the morning.
“There was something else Fred did that I absolutely adored. He’d talk to you while you were dancing—very quietly under his breath. If he liked what you were doing, he’d say, ‘Now you’re dancin’!’ I just loved that. It always made me feel so great. And the other thing I really appreciated about him was that he gave you breathing room. Some partners make you feel so constricted, like you’re in a vise. But not Fred. He demanded precision but within all that precision, you felt remarkably free, like you’re floating. You know how music lifts you and carries you? That’s what it was like to partner with Fred.”
“He obviously enjoyed dancing with you.”
“I’m sure that he did. He liked to describe me as ‘a mover.’ For the longest time I thought it was some subtle put-down. Why doesn’t he call me a dancer? Cyd Charisse is a dancer, and I’m just a mover? What’s that all about? Then one day I heard him tell someone that he thought horses were the best movers. Fred simply adored horses. And I thought, my God, all this time he’s been praising me and I didn’t see it.”
“I imagine the TV special got you out of the chorus?”
“Yes. After the first TV special with Fred, I received an avalanche of telegrams, phone calls, and job offers. It was unbelievable. My world totally changed after that. I even got a call from Irving Berlin congratulating me on my performance.”
“And yet you quit show business fairly young.”
“Yes, I was thirty-eight, just a few years after my last special with Fred. I felt it was time to concentrate on my personal life. I’d already had two failed marriages and didn’t want to mess up my third. Hollywood makes many demands on your private life. When the time came, I remembered something that the great dancer Nora Kaye had told me. She said, ‘Barrie, you won’t know that you’ve really stopped dancing until you’ve gotten rid of your ballet slippers and rehearsal clothes. That will be the defining factor.’ One day, many years after I had stopped dancing, I looked at my closet shelf and there were my leotards, my stockings, and my rehearsal shoes neatly arranged, just sitting there as if waiting to be put to use. Nora’s words came back to me and I thought, why am I keeping all these things? It’s time to let go of them. But it was very hard to do, very hard to do.”
“What did you do with them?”
“I