Jack Cole: The Jazz Dancer

Eons ago, when I was a small child, I was privileged to study modern dance at a West Hollywood mecca known as the Lester Horton Dance Theater. Among my early teachers was a lovely woman named Carmen de Lavallade, who would go on to have a solid career as a dancer and actress, and would take home a Kennedy Center Honor in the days before the fate of the center was headline news. I was thrilled, many decades later, to share a meal with the still-beautiful eighty-year-old Carmen in New York City. I was also thrilled that, at a reunion event in L.A., the great Alvin Ailey remembered my childhood nickname. Alvin, Carmen, and I were all, of course, huge fans of the creative work of Dance Theater’s founder, Lester Horton. So were the writers at the New York Times, one of whom wrote a rave review of the Horton troupe under the headline, “Genius on the Wrong Coast.”

 Back then I heard fleetingly about other L.A.-based dancers and choreographers, In particular I heard about Jack Cole, whom I associated with sexy movie routines. But I never considered myself knowledgeable about Cole’s contributions to the art of the dance, until now. I’ve just finished reading Debra Levine’s exhaustive (but hardly exhausting) new Jazzed: Jack Cole and Twentieth-Century American Dance, published by the University Press of Kentucky. Levine, a longtime dance writer whose lively prose contributes hugely to the success of this book, seems to have dug into every corner of Cole’s eventful life: his nightclub adventures, his years in Hollywood, his forays into choreography for the Broadway stage, where Man of La Mancha was his biggest hit. Having interviewed what appears to be everyone who ever danced under Cole’s tutelage—a group that includes Gwen Verdon, Barrie Chase, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade—she is also able to convey the complexity of Cole’s on-stage and off-stage personality. (He inspired love, fear, and pretty much everything in between.)

 Cole’s first contribution to dance lore was his invention of something called “Hindu swing,” which evolved out of his serious study of Indian dance, combined with a jazzy uptempo beat. Throughout his career he (like Lester Horton) explored dance forms from many cultures, then demanded of his dancers a grueling technique that few could master. But he also, in Hollywood, found himself obliged to create effective movement for non-dancers like Marlene Dietrich and Jane Russell. Levine credits him with significantly energizing Rita Hayworth’s portrayal of the title role in Gilda (1946): his uncredited staging of Hayworth’s “Put the Blame on Mame” in that film turned her into an unforgettable silver-screen vamp. 

 But most of all, Cole  was known for his work with Marilyn Monroe. Throughout her troubled career Marilyn trusted him implicitly as both a choreographer and a drama coach. Levine says Cole taught her how to move onscreen, and led her through her sexiest and most famous musical number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” from 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (He was responsible for every aspect of that number, including its bold red-and-shocking-pink color scheme.) Years later, he struggled to coach her through the troubled Let’s Make Love as well as Something’s Got to Give, which remains unfinished because of its star’s sudden death.

 Though Cole never won a major award for his choreography, Levine insists that such later greats as Bob Fosse learned from his stylistic experimentation. Count me as a new fan . . . of both Jack Cole and Debra Levine. Though Cole (1911-1974) is long gone, may they both keep on dancing.  

Marilyn Monroe sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

 

Seduced by Howard Hughes

It’s natural -- especially when you come from a family of engineers -– to think of Howard Hughes mostly  in terms of aircraft. And of course there’s the latter-day Hughes, a crazy old man whose fortune couldn’t shield him from mental illness and a lonely death. But Hughes’ life (1905-1976) was intertwined with the history of the Hollywood movie industry. As a dashing young millionaire, he became determined to be a force in the world of entertainment. 

 Starting in 1926, Hughes put his considerable money behind films that were nominated for, and sometimes won, Academy Awards. Most notably, he sank about $3 million (and three years of his life) into a pet project, the World War I aerial drama, Hell’s Angels. The film, which was nominated for Best Cinematography, launched the career of Jean Harlow, whom Hughes chose to outfit in slinky gowns of his own devising. But despite a massive publicity campaign, Hell’s Angels could not recoup its then-outlandish expenses. There were human costs too. The spectacular aerial stunt work led to the deaths of three aviators and a mechanic. And Hughes himself, as a participant in some of the stunts, crashed his plane and suffered a fractured skull, the first of many dramatic injuries that doubtless contributed to his strange, twisted view of life.

 In 2018, a new book on Hughes’ movie years made its appearance. Called Seduction:Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’ Hollywood, this heavily researched volume was written by Karina Longworth, the Angeleno behind You Must Remember This, a popular podcast that chronicles the secret history of the old studio system. Longworth does not neglect Hughes the industrialist, but her focus is on Hughes’ interaction with Hollywood, especially its women. There are lots of colorful details about his romances with Katharine Hepburn (who praised him as a lover), Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, and other celebrated lovelies. Much time is spent, needless to say, on his relationship with the very young, very well endowed Jane Russell: while guiding the production of The Outlaw, in which she plays a half-breed Mexican beauty sexually assaulted in a hayloft  by Billy the Kid, Hughes famously engineered a brassiere that would dramatically emphasize her two most prominent assets. Russell’s relationship with Hughes was to complicate her later marriage to a prominent football star. While moving in and out of a leadership role at RKO Pictures, Hughes kept Russell under personal contract for decades.

 I learned, in passing, about many remarkable Hollywood women. One was Ida Lupino, admired today as one of the few American females able to break into directing, but also apparently someone who fostered her own career success by secretly cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee during the dark days of the Blacklist. Another was Terry Moore, a blonde and perky devout Mormon  (now 92), who still seems convinced that she and Hughes contracted a secret marriage in 1949. (She has since had 5 other husbands.) Most disturbing, though, is Longworth’s recounting of the way the middle-aged Hughes courted pretty and very young women, scouting them out in their hometowns, enlisting the support of their starstruck mothers, and dangling before them the prospects of a movie career. Once they came to Hollywood, Hughes would ensconce them in hotel suites or bungalows, provide them with cars and drivers, enroll them in acting and dance classes, then occasionally drop by to sample their charms. No surprise: few ever appeared in movies at all. But Hughes did, as portrayed by Jason Robards, in 1980s sad and hilarious Melvin and Howard.