Dance Critic Debra Levine to Co-Host “Choreography by Jack Cole” on Turner Classic Movies Monday September 10, 2012
ULCA Film & Television Archive and the Dance Heritage Coalition also honor the gifted choreographer
TCM Host Robert Osborne with dance critic Debra Levine. Photos courtesy TCM PH Mark Hill.
Los Angeles-based dance critic and arts journalist Debra Levine (Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, artsmeme.com) will co-host a special tribute to the influential dance maker Jack Cole (1911-1974) on Turner Classic Movies. The four-film tribute will be broadcast on September 10, 2012 starting at 8 pm ET (5 pm PT). Ms. Levine joins TCM’s veteran host Robert Osborne to provide commentary.
From 1941 to 1962, Cole pioneered American jazz dance as an art form in Hollywood films. He contributed dance sequences to 30 movies at Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer, some credited, some not. Cole left behind a celluloid track record of outstanding filmed dance sequences with highly diverse themes, all with a recognizable Cole brand that is uncannily contemporary.
TCM schedule for September 10, 2012:
Tonight & Every Night (1945), 8 pm (ET), 5 pm (PT) Columbia Studios, 1945 dir Victor Saville Rita Hayworth, Lee Bowman, Janet Blair, Marc Platt
On the Riviera (1951) 10 pm (ET), 7 pm (PT) Twentieth Century Fox, dir Walter Lang Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney, Gwen Verdon
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1952), 11:45 pm (ET), 8:45 pm (PT) Twentieth Century Fox, dir Howard Hawks Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell
Les Girls (MGM, 1957) 1:30 am (ET), 11:30 pm (PT) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, dir George Cukor Kay Kendall, Taina Elg, Mitzi Gaynor, Gene Kelly Jack Cole with Marilyn Monroe
UCLA Film & Television Archive, “A Tribute to Choreographer Jack Cole”
Levine also participates in a live event at the Billy Wilder Theater of UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on August 4, 2012 as UCLA Film & Television Archive will screen a rarely viewed Cole movie, The I Don’t Care Girl (1953, Twentieth Century Fox). Film star Mitzi Gaynor will attend the screening and participate in post-screening conversation with Levine and dance historian Larry Billman. Shannon Kelley will lead the discussion.
“I am thrilled that UCLA will share its print of this rarely viewed Fox musical. It’s a cult classic not for the film but for the three sensational Jack Cole dance sequences embedded inside it. Mitzi Gaynor is so outstanding in this movie, dancing at the caliber of greatness. It all fits because Jack Cole was a treasured dance instructor at UCLA at the time of his death,” says Levine.
Who was Jack Cole?
Born in New Brunswick in 1911, Jack Cole’s extraordinary career as a top American dancer/choreographer began with pioneering modern-dance troupe, Denishawn. His innovative nightclub act, Jack Cole and his Dancers, toured the nation’s night clubs starting around 1933. In the mid 1940s in Los Angeles, Cole began a 20-year run as a brilliant and innovative Hollywood choreographer, crafting ingenious customized dance sequences for stars like Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable and others. Cole coached the stars not only in movement but also in song and line delivery. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Levine called Cole’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) “a delicious confection, a piece of Hollywood perfection.” Jack Cole died at age 62 in Los Angeles in 1974.
About Debra Levine
Former modern dancer Debra Levine, a graduate of the City University of New York, is a Los Angeles arts writer specialized in dance. She blogs about film and dance at artsmeme.com. The Pittsburgh native has lived in New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tel Aviv, nurturing her arts passion in all cities. Her criticism and feature writing are published in the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Dance Magazine.
Levine’s significant writing about Jack Cole includes:
• “Jack Cole,” just published as part of the Washington, D.C.-based Dance Heritage Coalition’s “100 American Dance Treasures” on-line dance history encyclopedia. • “Jack Cole, Master Choreographer,” (The Huffington Post, 08-19-2010) • “Jack Cole Made Marilyn Monroe Move,” (Los Angeles Times, 08-09-2009)
Levine spoke about Jack Cole at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s 2010 symposium on the choreographer. She was a Scholar in Residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2011. She was a Fellow at the NEA Classical Music & Opera Institute at Columbia University in New York. She was a Fellow at the NEA Dance Criticism Institute at the American Dance Festival at Duke University. In August 2009 she led the successful grassroots campaign to save the 40-year-running classic film program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Grants from the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation and Elizabeth Levitt Hirsch have supported Debra’s research into Los Angeles dance history.
Contact: Caroline Graham, C4 Global Communications, 310-899-2727, or [email protected].