The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, August 18, 1930, Page 6

il = = —— = = == = = == == = = = BRB UUUUNAAUccenigetrcacatctttt- mi tucrectccettntie- TTT HANIA CT HASAN UU A HII UTTTUTATTTTTNY MOTTTTTTUTAN TNT ATTN TTTTT ANAT AATATTUCTTTTe Tecan nH a TI Romantic Story of the Every music show dancer goes through a routine before the show... to limber up... . Back-stage before curtain time ~ «oo it is a little like @ madhouse. ROADWAY has “dear Aunt An- - nie” to thank! And so has America's premiere danseuse. It’s no ordinary feat to rise in a couple of years from a youngster in a chorus ballet to the acknowledged prima ballerina of the land. Harriet. Hoctor, the “dancing Kid from Hoosick Falls,” did just that. Anyone who knows his Broadway will tell you that the oustanding individual artistic tia of the past theatrical season was scored by Miss Hoctor in “Simple Simon.” A jury of experts picked her as America’s outstanding dancer; the swankiest magazines broadcast her photographs; the critics raved, and the audi- ences cheered; the big lights were suddenly trained to spell her name and the more esthetic are now insisting that she leave the theater for the concert stage. All of which, you would think, might com- pletely turn the head of a small town youngster. Quite the contrary! In all New York you'll find few youngsters who remind you more of “the unspoiled lass you took to the college prom. And though her salary is in the large figures, the house in which Aunt Annie and Harriet Hoctor dwell might be any modest, old-fash- ioned manor just off Main Street. As it happens, this house is on Murray Hill, which is one of New York's old aristocratic stamping pet The palace of J. Pierpont Morgan, for instance, is just around the corner. lothing is more untypical of an overnight Broadway favorite. Vs Aunt Annie seems perfectly at home in such an atmosphere, for she approximates a sort of NASA Words By GILBERT SWAN Sketches By GEORGE CLARK Harriet Hoctor in three poses taken from her dancing features in Zieg- feld’s “Simple Simon.” . . . She devises her own new sleps. compbsite picture of all the aunts we Ne Yorkers left behind when we came from th: small towns of America. You know the sort of aunt I mean: the one who seemed to appre- ciate you more than your own mother ; who always had some grand surprise on your birth- day and sneaked you cookies after they had been forbidden. \ Aunt Annie suggests all these things; but she’s shrewd with the philosophies and wisdoms of the country and the city, too. ITH which introduction I come to a story which, so far as I know, is here told for the first time. Up in Hoosick Falls, the Hoctors were just townsfolk. But in the household there was the same faith in the precocity of offspring as may be found in almost any house. And Aunt Annie, noting the childish, gyrations of little Harriet, had that firm, aunt-like faith that here was a V0 10 AA HAM AAU Wyuna -rom Hoosick Falls Critics call Harriet Hoctor America’s best ballerina, and all her success she owes to her Aunt Annie. gveat future dancer. She held to that idea. For years Aunt Annie had been companion and social secretary to a very wealthy woman. This association ripened to a friendship and one day the rich woman commented: ‘é1 would like to make you some gift when we part. A sum of money—anything.”” And Aunt Annie being the sort of unselfish aunt we all like to remember, answered: “If you really want to do something for me, you'll take an interest in my niece. could be a fine dancer if she had a chance—if (Copyright, 1930, By EveryWeek Magazine—Printed in U. § A) think arriet Tn “au UMADLUALEL ce mutant BOTT UUASATCAUUITLUTHNTVAULAILUMULIAILAROUCUUUNALCLUCG ROOM TOTTI LUT Belle someone provided the money for her education.” hich is why Broadway and the premiere danseuse have Aunt Annie to thank. Little Harriet was sent to New York in charge of her aunt and turned over to Chalif, the dance instructor. When she was about 16 she was ready for the stage and went out with: a vaudeville act. Tt so happenéd ‘that on the same bill were the Duncan Sisters. Miss Hoctor gives them credit for paving the way to her big New York chance. They asked her to join their act and made her an important part of their “Topsy and Eva’ show. For all of which Miss Hoctor is still grate- ful—a rare admission on Broadway! Then she went to “tA La Carte” and was featured in a doll bailet. Suddenly she was informed that none other than Flo Ziegfeld would give her a trial. 66 « ND a rather strange bit of fortune came my way,” she relates. “Mr. Ziegfeld was getting ready to cast for a produc- tion. It is customary at such times for a pex- former merely to suggest his act—not to go through it completely, but to sort of fake through their routine. He was in the audience. It came my turn. And somehow or other, I had an intuition that [ shouldn't just outline my number. I actually danced through it. heard him applauding. “IT got my lucky break in this fashion: that very night I hurt my knee so badly that T could not dance. Had I not shown him previ- ously what I could do, I probably never could have made the grade with a bandaged leg. But he told me that that didn’t make any differ- ence. He had seen my work, and I could go on. I went into “Three Musketeers” with my leg in a splint, I had to invent skipping steps to overcome the handicap and, of course, the au- dience didn’t know what was going on.” There's an old legend that_fame and fortune in Broadway gets the best of them. The mo- ment the top of the world has been reached, rainy-day friends are usually forgotten; fair- weather friends come along and the riew fa- vorite goes in for town cars and country homes; a “high hat’ attitude creeps in and the Social Register boy and the big spenders usually run up with invitations to this and to that; the endless cycle of glamour and gaiety sets in. None of that for Miss Hoctor! She is saving “her energies and herself for her job. She worked too hard to get where she is to take any chances .on sliding. And she’s still miles away from a goal she has ‘set for herself. For there’s a great list of “don'ts” in the daily life of a youngster who would dedicate her life to the higher intricacies of dancing. i ByyieerererrrerreerevvevrecrvCCcvtTtrevvrveavTrUtVCOUae _YTTCHNOO THT by George Clark, and shows her in one of This sketch of Harriet Hoctor . . . was made her rare moments of repose. ID it ever occur to you what everyday sports and amuse- ments a great dancer should deny herself if she would build toward a brighter future? Well, just listen in, as I did when Miss Hoctor told me about at: You mustn't play golf. For + that would give muscle and hard- ness to arms and wrists, which must be kept supple and soft for silken arm movements. You can’t swim. For that would build up shoulders which must be kept soft-lined. And then, too, you might get sunburned, which just cant one. You can’t skate in winter. For that would thicken the ankles. Tennis can be attempted moderately. But if gone in for seriously it would muscularize wrists and shoulders. UST before theater curtain time, the body J must be made limp and limber for the per- formance. There is a routine of stretching exercises which practically every music show dancer goes through. you were to wander casually backstage a few minutes before curtain time, the sights would cause you to believe that you had wandered into some gymnastic madhouse. Girls may be observed grasping a bit of scenery for support while stretching a toe directly up the back wall. Another may have one foot propped on a piano top and another on the floor.. An- other may be using the back of a chair. America’s best dancer uses not only these, but actually goes through the numbers she is jater_to perform before an audience. “This is to provide a sort of relaxed-fatigue, or whatever you might call it,” she explains. “When you do these steps for the first time you are likely to pant—like a runner. This passes, and a certain elasticity is achieved. Then you can go 01 The exercises at home are limited. almost entirely to limbering, and while they might seem difficult to some, are really not particularly strenuous. Just as a pianist or vocalist must practice a couple of hours a day, so the dancer gives about two hours daily to training. “¢7T’S funny—but most people get the notion that once a performer has arrived, it’s nec- essary only to lean back and float alo: ‘on gained laurels. As a matter of fact, one o the most trying features is to create and practice new steps. I still take dancing lessons. I go to a class regularly. “There's a room at the school equipped with mirrors and there it is possible to watch your new inventions,” As anyone in the Broadway belt knows only too well, everyone watches the acts of everyone else. Gags are pilfered, and so are dance steps. Two difficult dance steps which Miss Hoc- tor created are now so generally used by the average run of solo ballet performers that she has tossed them into the discard. And, as she points out, some of the steps that cote loudest applause are more tricky than ificult. URING the entire run of the perform- ance Aunt Annie sits patiently night after night in the dressing room ready to help and. cheer her niece. 2 “And sitting there watching her, I never get over ‘my anxiety my wonder,” says Aunt Annie. “When she takes some of those difficult twists, I always shut gny Gis and hold my -breath until it's over with, because I always have a fear that some night she’s going to lose her balance and fall over, hurting herself. “*And then she needs someone to comfort her some nights. You'd think that by this time she would have got over worse. But do you know that sometimes she still comes in off the stage and sits down and begins fo a And when I ask her for land’s sakes what's the mat- ter, she'll tell me that she did something wrong or that she wasn't particularly good that night. And to save my soul, I couldn't have no! it. But she’s jot, tat ‘eae that fie a come home nights and go to and cry hersel to sleep on the pillow. And no one would It. "Fon after all, the biggest town hit is, under the skin, just one of the smallest town girls. uA NUNIT a £ UVOILCNUACGENLUULULUOALUAOUUALLOUREACACLULU UCUDUUUANUOCAUUANO ALCO KEAN ANOEESUUAAOU AAA tn KttLt I(t AUtHUt « .¢ TTT (UTHUUUUaAeenn % TOUT AT ill I TM i a