by Robert Wilkinson
Today is the birthday of one of the most incredible dancers ever to hit the silver screen, the amazing Harold Nicholas. If you want to see a tap dancer considered to be perhaps one of the two greatest in the 20th century, check out the links if you want to see some amazing moves!! Our other birthday boy, Thorne Smith, gave the world Topper, Turnabout, Night Life of the Gods, as well as a host of other novels whose plots have been used in countless movies.
Harold Nicholas (March 27, 1921 – July 3, 2000) was a choreographer, dancer and actor. With his brother Fayard (October 20, 1914 – January 24, 2006), these dynamic dancers used a highly acrobatic technique called flash dancing, as well as a high level of artistry and daring innovations. These guys were considered two of the greatest tap dancers of their times.
From Wikipedia, we read that "by 1940, they were in Hollywood and for several decades alternated between movies, nightclubs, concerts, Broadway, television, and extensive tours of Latin America, Africa, and Europe.
The Nicholas Brothers taught master classes in tap dance as teachers-in-residence at Harvard University and Radcliffe... Among their known students are Debbie Allen, Janet Jackson, and Michael Jackson."
Fred Astaire once told the brothers that the 'Jumpin' Jive' dance number in Stormy Weather was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen. In that famous routine, the Nicholas Brothers leapt exuberantly across the orchestra's music stands and danced on the top of a grand piano in a call and response act with the pianist.
Another signature move was to arise from a split without using the hands. Gregory Hines declared that if their biography were ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one now could emulate them. Ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov once called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life."
For your enjoyment and amazement, the Nicholas Brothers!
From Stormy Weather, here are the Nicholas brothers with the Cabster doing a number that’s considered the greatest performance in tap dance history, "The Jumpin' Jive"
Here’s a longer 6+ minute clip leading into the dance sequence, with Bill Robinson performing “I Love Being Black” followed by dozens of dancers in zoot suits and regalia and the Cabster getting wild with "The Jumpin' Jive" right before the Nicholas brothers giving us one for the ages!
When they were kids in 1932, Fayard and Harold tapping out “Pie Pie Blackbird”
From the 1934 movie Kid Millions, an early performance of the brothers tapping to “Mandy”
Still young, here’s a bit from 1935 called "Tap Dance."
From 1935, here’s a 11 minute short titled An All Colored Vaudeville Show, with Fayard and Harold Nicholas all over the stage, doing flips, cartwheels, and handstands! "The Nicholas Brothers and Adelaide Hall."
From 1936 and still young, an excerpt from the all-black musical The Black Network. Here are Fayard and Harold Nicholas singing and dancing in "Lucky Numbers."
In previous years I had a great clip from the Big Broadcast of 1936, featuring the Nicholas Brothers with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson knocking it out of the park doing “Miss Brown to You.” Unfortunately, it’s nowhere to be found this year. So we’ll jump to their two most famous movies!
From the finale of the 1940 movie Down Argentine Way, the Nicholas Brothers doing the title song, "Down Argentine Way."
In one of their more well-known performances from the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, here are Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers backed by Glenn Miller doing "Chattanooga Choo Choo."
Here the Nicholas Brothers in 1942 in the movie Orchestra Wives, dance to Glenn Miller’s “I’ve got a Gal in Kalamazoo”
I found it again! From 1977 on the Jacksons’ television show, the brothers crank it up and are joined by a young Michael Jackson in several minutes of great tapping! The Nicholas Brothers and Michael Jackson do the Original Chicken Dance
I gave you this earlier, but found this longer clip that leads into the dance routine. From Stormy Weather, the Cabster with the Nicholas Brothers! “Jumpin’ Jive”
Here’s a great clip with Gregory Hines commenting on what he believes is one of the greatest dance routines in history! Gregory Hines on The Nicholas Brothers performance in Stormy Weather
From the 1948 movie The Pirate, Gene Kelly Dances with the Nicholas Brothers
Here’s a 7 minute interview with Fayard Nicholas titled “Mister Nicholas and Mister Astaire”
We’ll close this birthday celebration with a great performance at the Kennedy Center in 1981! For your enjoyment, "Max Roach and Harold Nicholas at the Kennedy Center Tribute to Duke Ellington."
For our encore, we have an incredible performance from 1965, "The Nicholas Brothers Dance at the Hollywood Palace" Fayard's the one doing the splits at age 50!
A great find, definitely worth the watch if you’re into “high flying dancing” and “virtuosity, charm, and athletic grace!” From Biography, here’s a 44 minute documentary titled The Nicholas Brothers Documentary
Here’s the Nicholas Brothers Website if you want to know more about these amazing dancers!
Born in segregated America, Harold and his brother Fayard lived to be world acclaimed artists, universally respected for their talent. RIP, gentlemen. You certainly raised the bar for all who followed!
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Now we turn to celebrate the life and works of one of the truly great original American authors, Mister Thorne Smith (March 27, 1892 – June 21, 1934). Even if he had given the world Topper as his sole offering his success would have been assured.
But after Topper, Thorne Smith went on to create some of the most memorable comedic novels ever written. The sad part is that the vast majority were out of print for many years, depriving the world of some of the most genuinely wholehearted laughter I’ve ever had this life when I was younger. Apparently some are back in print, so there’s hope for the future!
From Wikipedia, we read he was:
… an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and supernatural transformations. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.Smith drank as steadily as his characters; his appearance in James Thurber’s The Years with Ross involves an unexplained week-long disappearance. Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland, , the son of a Navy commodore and attended Dartmouth College. Following hungry years in Greenwich Village, working part-time as an advertising agent, Smith achieved meteoric success with the publication of Topper in 1926. He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall according to the economic principles of Henry George in Berkeley Heights New Jersey. He died of a heart attack in 1934 while vacationing in Florida.
If you go to the Wikipedia entry, it has a list of all his novels and what they’re about. I read either 4 or 5 of them when a teen, and while they were racy for the times (and maybe even today for some people!), they were also bare bones about blending life, humor, fantasy, and deep truths about human nature.
Topper, of course, was made into a box office hit and a television series. Turnabout was also made into a movie and a television series. And to note, some of the hit movie Cocoon sure seems like it could have incorporated elements of The Glorious Pool. His tales were/are timeless, and he’s a true American original! Thanks for the laughs, Brother Aries!
The Official Thorne Smith Website
Here’s a link to “the Thorne Smith biography that’s never been written.”
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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