By HopMichael on Wednesday, July 05, 2000 - 11:26 am: EditI've heard many dancers admire the tap dancing of the Nicholas Brothers. It's sad to say that another dancing legend has passed away. Still, I'm inspired now to seek out their films to remember their dancing.
-HopM
[from CNN]
July 4, 2000
Web posted at: 3:39 p.m. EDT (1939 GMT)
NEW YORK (AP) -- Harold Nicholas, who as the younger half
of the legendary black tap-dancing Nicholas Brothers inspired
generations of hoofers with his grace and spectacular agility, has
died. He was 79.
Nicholas died Monday of heart failure.
The Nicholas Brothers, Harold and his brother, Fayard, began
their careers as children in vaudeville with their musician parents.
They went on to stop shows on Broadway, in nightclubs, on
television and in movie musicals.
"We were tap-dancers but we put more style into it, more
bodywork, instead of just footwork," Harold Nicholas recalled in
a 1987 interview. "I copied my brother. He was a natural dancer.
Graceful. People always asked did we study ballet. We never
did."
Astaire's applause
With his brother and later as a solo performer, Harold Nicholas
appeared in more than 50 movies, including "The Big Broadcast
of 1936" (1935), "Down Argentine Way" (1940), "Tin Pan
Alley" (1940) and "Sun Valley Serenade" (1941).
Fred Astaire told the brothers that their dazzling footwork, leaps
and splits in the "Jumpin' Jive" dance in "Stormy Weather"
(1943) produced the greatest movie musical number he had ever
seen. In the number, the brothers dance on drums and leap over
orchestra musicians.
"In 'Stormy Weather' he had a huge set made of big steps,"
Nicholas recalled. "My brother would jump over my head into a
split on the step below me," he said. "I'd do the same thing over
his head until we both got down on the floor."
"The only thing I say is, if they want me to jump down the steps
now, they'll have to pay me a lot of money," he joked in 1987.
Playing hooky
The brothers also appeared on Broadway in "The Ziegfeld
Follies of 1936" -- a production that also starred Bob Hope and
Fanny Brice. George Balanchine put the brothers in "Babes in
Arms" the next year.
Fayard, born in 1914, and Harold, born in 1921, got interested in
dancing from attending vaudeville shows while their parents
played in the pit orchestra.
"Fayard used to play hooky to go see the shows," Harold
recalled. "He picked up the tap-dancing, then he taught me steps,
which wasn't an easy job."
The brothers were good enough by 1928 to debut in vaudeville.
In 1932 they made their film debut in a short, "Pie Pie
Blackbird," and got a booking at Harlem's famed Cotton Club.
Movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn spotted them at the club and cast
them in the Eddie Cantor musical "Kid Millions" (1934).
The two became film stars despite racial restrictions that limited
them largely to musical sequences that were sometimes cut from
versions shown in the South. They finally danced with a white
star, Gene Kelly, in their last film together, 1948's "The Pirate."
"If you were black, you experienced (prejudice)," Nicholas said.
"It wasn't a real horrible thing for us; we went through it. We
noticed it mostly in the South and in Las Vegas, where we
couldn't stay in the hotels where we entertained. But that began
to change."
Second career
In 1950, Harold Nicholas moved to France, where he had a
successful second career in nightclubs and film. He was based in
Paris but toured throughout Europe and North Africa.
By the end of the 1960s, the two brothers had stopped
performing together. Harold continued solo, appearing in
Broadway shows such as "The Tap Dance Kid" and
"Sophisticated Ladies" and acting in occasional movies, including
"Uptown Saturday Night" (1974).
Because they were known as song-and-dance men, the Nicholas
Brothers' contributions were often overlooked. But then Fayard
Nicholas won a Tony award in 1989 for choreography of "Black
and Blue," and the brothers were given Kennedy Center Honors
in 1991. Other awards followed.
Harold's first marriage, to actress Dorothy Dandridge, ended in
divorce after the two had a mentally disabled daughter.
Dandridge was the first black actress to be nominated for an
Academy Award. She died at 42 of a drug overdose.
He is survived by his third wife, Rigmor Newman Nicholas, and
his brother, Fayard.