Word: hoofers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Broadway, which invented what have since become the cliches of backstage sagas and gangster melodramas. Pat Patton's staging abounds with campy cabaret numbers, menacing slapstick and chorus-girl goofiness, and centers on a superbly acted struggle for the heroine between a sinuous mobster (Castellanos) and a cheery hoofer (Brian Tyrrell). Broadway celebrates the gutsy traditions and restorative powers of the theater. Some 2,500 miles off Broadway, Ashland does the same, season after season...
...retirement to play Ragtime's canny police commissioner, a man whose final ruthlessness was like a congealed residue of Cagney's youthful pugnacity. Cagney was rediscovered and in the years that followed treated to a flood of public affection, tributes and honors. Though age had undone his hoofer's dexterity, he made a last proud turn in the Hollywood spotlight...
...used the fast-changing rhythms of a hoofer to orchestrate a characterization. Like all the best actors, he always made it look easy. Like Spencer Tracy, he seemed a natural force: everything seemed to flow out without calculation. Tracy, however, made chamber music; Cagney was a marching band. It is probably this particular blend of effortlessness and theatricality that moved Orson Welles to marvel, "You're supposed to be scaled down and subtle in movie acting. But look at Cagney--he's big. Everything he does is big, and it works...
...signs of shyness and loneliness, Mother Erma signed her up for tap-dancing lessons as therapy, then took her to an audition for a Kiddie Revue at a local radio station. Erma stayed on the program for nearly eight years, tap dancing and singing. "She was quite a little hoofer," says her mother, who still has Erma's signed song sheets for On the Good Ship Lollipop and I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter. Bombeck says it is obvious that the wrong Erma broke into show biz. When her mother, now a lively...
...explaining that turning 85 "is special enough." He still reads scripts, pursues his acting career, feels well and says, "I couldn't ask for anything more." Well, there is one thing: "I would like to have been able to do very good golf. I love the game." The hoofer-duffer may not be the pro on the fairway that he wants to be, but it is inconceivable that his swing could be anything but smooth...