Dancers You Absolutely Cannot Abide

Cyd Charisse

Giraffe legs.

[shiver]

R1 How could anyone watch that bitch clomp around in those ridiculous shoes?

Esther Williams.

That’s not dancing, honey.

Beyonce. She always looks like she’s having a seizure, trying to look fierce.

I love Donald O'Conner, but he was always watching his feet.

Beyonce with those thunder thighs is just to big to be graceful or any kind of real dancer. She's more from the shake that ass and whip that hair school of hoofing.

J-Lo. Clumsy failed fly girl dance moves.

Savion Glover. Never could understand the adulation around him. His tap dancing was mediocre at best.

My mother was a dancer when she was young, and she loathed Ann Miller.

"All she ever did was twirl. Twirl, twirl, twirl!" mom used to say whenever an Ann Miller movie would be on TV.

Yeah, and my grandmother said Ginger Rogers had thick ankles.

My grandmother was NOT a dancer.

Michael Jackson. More of a writher than a dancer.

Corey Failedman. Well, he THINKS he’s a dancer. He thinks he’s a lot of things, but his Michael Jackson bullshit was old and tired when he first foisted it upon the masses.

R9’s mother was a booze-addled cunt.

Elizabeth Bradford

Mario Lopez! Can’t sing, can’t act, CAN’T DANCE. A triple threat. Oh, and so insecure he cannot abide anyone “upstaging” him with a better body, so he makes them wear a sweatshirt. Quadruple threat.

R8 I think he hung around longer because we all kept wondering if he was related to other Glovers. Danny? Crispin? What gives?

R9 Your mom sounds fun. I wish we could whip up a batch of Daiquiris with your mom and R10 grandmother. We could watch all of those old song and dance movies and scream at the television. I'll make everything.

Alvin Ailey. So I killed him.

Trivia from The Making of No No Nanette book: Ruby's taps were not the metal taps that most tap dancers used during the Golden Age of Musicals and continue to use today. She wore wooden sole shoes, which sounded more percussive on a masonite floor.

Ann Miller is pure joy.

I too loathe Ann Miller

Vera Ellen. looks like she is having an epileptic fit.

I LOATHE Ruby Keeler. Graceless,awkward,amateurish and UGLY on top! Who the fuck did she blow??

You rang?

Elaine Benes!

If you don't understand Ruby Keeler, you shouldn't be on Data Lounge.

R26 We understand she couldn't dance, sing, or act.

And yet she was delightful.

Joyce DeWitt's LEGGS commercial.

Fred Astaire, in his autobiography 'Steps in Time' (he said Noel Coward suggested the title), Fred said Vera Ellen was fantastic. He especially loved that she was so skinny. He had a sort of obsession on the subject. He thought it was gross when Leslie Caron would eat a steak and potatoes for dinner - when he'd have chicken soup to keep his dancing weight (of 135 lbs at 5'9")

His later life tv-show partner Barrie Chase, and I guess girlfriend - anyway, she said when she'd go to his house for dinner he'd count out how many peanuts she could have as an aperitif. What a boyfriend! He ended up marrying a female jockey decades younger than him but she stayed with him till the end, when he died at 85 of pneumonia. Sorry for all the details... but he was a weird one. His sister called him "Moanin' Minnie" and never thought he had any sex appeal till he danced with Tillie Losch on Broadway when he was about 30.

Joan

R22 That was hilarious. The entire number, including the dancer in the purple shirt, was a pretentious piece of shit!

Debbie Allen could dance, sing and choreograph. All badly.

Sally Draper

The June Taylor Dancers

[quote]His sister called him "Moanin' Minnie" and never thought he had any sex appeal till he danced with Tillie Losch on Broadway when he was about 30.

Most people's sisters never think they have sex appeal at all. Most people's sisters don't even think ABOUT it.

Nicole Roby

R36, most siblings are not major successes on the vaudeville circuit, so her analysis of his sex appeal is very relevant.

r4 Yes, she moves like a bug got into her outfit

Yikes, that opening was the worst rendition of 42nd Street I’ve ever heard. Her phrasing is terrible! And that was prior to the dancing!

R7 As fellow Fly Girl Carrie Ann Inaba once said, "Jennifer didn't dance so much as convulse."

R7 When J-Lo did the video for "If You Want My Love," she was apparently insistent that she get to show off her dance moves, so she made the director add the "dance break" sequence in the middle of the song, which was completely screwed up the song and the tone of the video and ultimately made her look ridiculous.

The part at about 3:30 is especially hilarious, with her trying to look "street" in her hip hop clothes and looking like she's about to teeter over as she tries to hold her pose.

^Sorry for the fat fingers and title screw up. It's "If You Had My Love," and the dance sequence "completely screwed up the song," not "which was completely screwed up the song."

I'll "Oh, dear" myself out of the room.

R42 wow that was dreadful

R42 When she does the lame kicks in her tiny silver skirt, she reminds me of Sue Goober.

That was HORRIBLE, R33! That number went on forever, and it made me miss the actual number in the movie… Debbie Allen always comes across as a try-hard, like she has a chip on her shoulder and something to prove. There’s no grace, warmth, or artistry, just a lot of attitude. There was an episode of Fame, where she had a dance-off with Donna McKechnie, and Donna wiped the floor with Allen’s wiggly, undulating, writhing ass, without even trying. Even though she comes across as arrogant and haughty, I almost felt sorry for Allen, who looked like a pile of clothes spinning in a dryer with her dance.

Syd charisse could cut a rug but was a raging bitch after hours

Cyd.

Can anyone explain Ruby Keeler's stardom? In addition to her clodhopping dancing, she couldn't sing or act!! All I can think of is she was so pathetically ordinary people identified with her in the great depression.

[quote] I almost felt sorry for Allen, who looked like a pile of clothes spinning in a dryer with her dance.

Good one, R46!

Thread closed.

There was an episode of Fame, where she had a dance-off with Donna McKechnie,

I think there was a similar episode of Fame where Debbie danced with Gwen Verdon. Another no contest.

I fucking love Ruby Keeler and I could watch her in 42nd St every night of the week so screw off, OP!!

[Quote]Can anyone explain Ruby Keeler's stardom?

Gamine, wholesome, winsome, bundle of optimism in the depths of the Depression. Let's enjoy her mesmerising surrealist turn in I Only Have Eyes For You from the peerless Dames

[Quote]How could anyone watch that bitch clomp around in those ridiculous shoes?

Fuck youuuuu R2

Ann Reinking. Built like a linebacker, no neck, no waist, broad shoulders. Long legs and good hips and that's where she did all her dancing. She was stiff as hell from the waist up and her arm movements were chaotic. However, it's still much better than listening to her sing.

This is niche but she deserves a dishonorary mention

Marika Rökk

favourite of Hitler and Stalin

No way, r38. A normal sister isn't capable of measuring her brother's fuckability. She sounds like a freak and I don't care who did what for a living.

R32 “the dancer in the purple shirt” you mean Gene fucking Kelly?

r56 Link please

Helen Gallagher

R60, she dances like a moose.

The colored ones.

This Ruby Keeler person is not good! 1932 didn't have instant social media feedback but this is clear true galumphing!

Twyla Tharp

Susan Hayward in I'll Cry Tomorrow. She can't sing either.

Concerning Ruby Keeler's dance style: "Ruby was a buck-and-wing dancer, meaning that her footwork was more percussive than anything else. It wasn’t particularly graceful and it didn’t require any distinct movements with the upper body. Now, I’ve seen people liken her footwork to stomping on ants. Personally, I can’t watch enough footage of her dancing around the screen with that charm of hers." --from link.

Found the Debbie Allen and Gwen Verdon clip.

Huge Ruby Keeler fan here but I know it's truly impossible to explain her indefinable appeal to those who don't get her.

Regardless of her lack of singing, dancing and acting talent, she was simply adorable in those early 1930s Warner Bros. musicals and actually very sexy in her seeming innocence. I saw her in No, No, Nanette on Broadway in 1971 and her tap dancing brought down the house. She had charisma!

Eleanor Powell was a far more talented dancer, yet I'd rather watch a Ruby Keeler film than any of Eleanor's.

Ruby was fucking Al Jolson and he made things happen for her

Debbie Allen pales next to Gwen. And that was Gwen at 57!

Thank you, r68! Gwen Verdon’s time to mop the floor with arrogant, wiggly, undulating, bitchy Debbie Allen. Verdon has so much poise, dignity, and makes everything look so easy, because she works from her center. Allen, on the other hand, is all over the place, as if she has no center—arms flailing, looking down at the floor, hunched shoulders (not like Fosse). As Verdon’s character tells her, “You’re working too hard.” Verdon looks like she’s having fun, and her personality really draws in her audience. Allen dances like it’s a blue collar job for her, and her style is very confrontational, instead of inviting.

Class has a longer lifespan than sass.

It makes you think the people behind the scenes on Fame must have hated Debbie Allen, to continually put her up against much better dancers on the show. How humiliating for her.

[quote] How could anyone watch that bitch clomp around in those ridiculous shoes?

You do realize she didn’t have the advantage of metal taps, don’t you? Originally, taps were wooden. It was a couple of years after this movie that Fred Astaire thought up the idea of metal taps and got the studio to make them. If revolutionized tapping, but some old time tappers couldn’t adjust to the lighter touch needed with metal taps.

They didn't call us hoofers for nothin'!

And YOU should have been watching the credits.

It's "O'Connor."

Oh, dear.

Isadora was ghastly but she knew how to make an exit.

R62 Christ! She twirls more than that bitch Ann Miller!

Gene "I'M ALL THAT MATTERS" Kelly.

Wasn't that Fred with Judy that once?

Fred and Judy were together in Easter Parade and did We're a Couple of Swells - and later, they were paired in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) but they fired Judy, her "frequent absences due to a dependence on prescription medication cost her the role."

Ginger Rogers took her place and it had been 10 years since Fred and Ginger had done a film together.

Oh and Fred bragged about what a wonderful tap dancer Eleanor Powell was (Broadway Melody of 1940) - he said she laid down the steps with power, like a man!

Mr. Bert Parks and his backup dancers

And then there was Susan's nip slip at about 4:35.......difficult to see in this poor copy.....

[Quote]Concerning Ruby Keeler's dance style:

This takes the number 1 slot in my fave DL posts of ALL TIME.

Susan Collins’ type of concern, or Susan Dey’s?

Debbie Allen was a producer on Fame. I'm sure she had some say on who guest starred.

Once you've seen the Hayward nip slip you can't unsee it and wonder how Fox never thought it needed to be reshot.

R74 It wasn't just her heavy-handed tapping.

Her moves were clumsy, she had bad posture, and she was always looking down at her feet as she was still studying how to dance.

I have no idea how she was ever considered a "dancer."

I remember in a review of No, No, Nanette John Simon compared the elder Ruby Keeler dancing to a pet dog on its hind legs. It's not that the feat is anything special, it's that it's accomplished at all. I'm paraphrasing badly. It was actually much funnier, if also cruel.

But seriously, watching Ruby perform was like watching a stutterer get through a speech. You're with them all the way.

Ruby Keeper was from a different dancing tradition, some sort of clod hopping iirc

"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 in audiences during the height of the Depression. Although as a dancer she wasn't as graceful or expressive as Ginger Rogers or as speedy and technically proficient as Ann Miller or Eleanor Powell, it should be noted that Keeler essentially began as a buck-and-wing dancer. Buck dancing was done without taps on the bottoms of one's shoes and aimed primarily at a percussive effect, with less concern for the movements of the upper body; certainly Keeler's duet with James Cagney in the "Shanghai Lil" number in "Footlight Parade" (1933) is very fun to watch and listen to..."

Oh my God Shanghai Lil is hilarious Cagney finds Ruby in an opium den and she acts Chinese

Here we go

I strongly suspect that Ruby Keeler got to where she did not by dancing.

[quote]Fred Astaire thought up the idea of metal taps

Um, no.

That Chinese devil!

No, she's on the level.

Did Bill "Bojangles" Robinson tap with wooden or metal taps?

Thank you, r57. Bug-eyed Rökk mugs like crazy in this 1938 clip, which features "Negro" saxophones that were banned by the Nazis shortly after.

Ruby, the soon-to-be former wife of Al Jolson, during divorce proceedings on December 26, 1939.

Shanghai Lil number vely lacist.

R93 Jimmy Cagney made his dancing look effortless. Ruby Keeler made it look like it was a struggle.

Plus, Jimmy had a sexy, tight little ass in that sailor suit.

R93 The woman sitting at the bar at :20 looks like Scarlett Johansson.

Keeler was a showgirl, neither a singer nor a gifted dancer (and she wasn’t above working as one of Polly Adler’s ‘girls’ when she needed to make ends meet.). She caught the eye of Al Jolson, arguably the biggest star in show business. He would drop into her new (flop) show “Show Girl” walking down the aisle through the audience to sing ”Liza” to her, which created a sensation. Since audiences were never sure when he would make an appearance, the box office stayed lively.

When he went to Warner Bros. on a huge movie contract after “The Jazz Singer” and “Sonny,” he prevailed on them to sign her to a contract too, which they did. Clumsy dancer though she was, she had a fresh, non-actressy quality that audiences found charming, and which made for a distinct contrast to the slick, cynical personas of Ruby’s “Forty Second Street” co-stars Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel. Of course Warners were aware of her considerable limitations, but they played up her sweetness and naturalism, even her flat line readings seemed proof of how ‘real’ she was compared to her co-stars. And they pushed her into romance after romance with Dick Powell, protecting her and enhancing her sincerity (and she did have a good figure for clothes).

But audiences soon got used to, then tired of her limitations by ‘36-‘37, as Jolson’s star began to fade as well. And more accomplished musical stars such as Eleanor Powell and Judy Garland were fast coming up at MGM, which made lusher, more popular musicals.

Ironically, Keeler got better over time, she worked hard on her dancing and was much improved in her last few musical pictures, and her screen presence and line readings became more relaxed and less stilted.

But it was too late. She retired from films, divorced Jolson (who was a tyrannical husband) married a civilian and had kids. When Jolson had a comeback entertaining the troops during WWII and his records were re-issued to great acclaim, Columbia decided to make a biopic of his life, by which time a retired Keeler forbade them from mentioning her by name.

Ruby was Catholic and claimed later in life that she had to end the marriage to Jolson - they had a license but were not 'married married' by an officiating priest or rabbi so that was her get-out with the Catholic church when she wanted to marry again.. She used to attend Mass when married to Al and sometimes he would go too, though he was an atheist. Maybe to keep tabs on her, he was dictatorial.

Ruby and Patsy Kelly often met with nun fans at the stage door of Nanette.

Jesus, R79 is an epic fail.

[Quote]Shanghai Lil number vely lacist

Next you'll be advising the Classical Hollywood era afficionados of the DL to avoid Gone With the Wind as "problematic" and insufficiently "decolonial".

Back in the 1970's there was a game show that had twenty people all sitting on chairs on risers.

The host would pick someone to answer questions.....it was weird.

One morning when I was watching a guy got called on and the host was talking to him.....and the guy said his name and said his mother was Ruby Keeler. I don't know if he was the son she & Jolson adopted or one of the four kids she had with her second husband.

Ghostbusters at the Academy Awards.

I believe Ruby had a few children with her second husband but none with Al Jolson.

That bitch who stands between Dasher and Prancer.

My mother, a rageaholic bitch, loved Ann Miller and watched any talk show or guest appearance for a bit of Ann.

I didn’t understand what was so great; it was a double-chinned, pasty white woman with scary hair and a beer gut.

And, then it struck me…. They both looked like horror movie monsters.

That's correct, R111

One fought in Vietnam

R69, There's no denying she had a certain amount of charm, but would she have gone anywhere if she hadn't started out in film in a Busby Berkeley hit? And continued in Busby Berkeley hits? Busby Berkeley was a film genius but in his big numbers the camera does most of the dancing around hundreds of chorus girls.

R110 She did have a son with Al Jolson. She had four other children with her second husband.

Adopted!

I was....

I saw Ruby Keeler in the touring company of No, No, Nanette back in the early 70's when I was a mere child of... She was the ticket. And yes, all I remember is her tap dancing.

I can't say a bad thing about Eleanor Powell as a wonderful dancer, but they cut her costumes in a way that left her looking like she had the biggest box in the business.

I can't abide that.

Britney Spears. She pretty much only moves her arms. She moves her torso, a bit.

We cut Eleanor's costumes with a big box to fit her big box. There's only so much one can do with shoulder pads.

Maybe she DID have the biggest box in the business.

Lovey Ellie Powell was a virgin when she married Glenn Ford and he cheated on her like his life depended on it

Yup......Jolson couldn't make babies so he and Ruby adopted a son....named him Al Jolson, Jr.

After they were divorced, Ruby changed the boy's name to Peter and he was adopted by her second husband.

Here's a nice write up about Ruby and her life and career.