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February 04, 2004
Tapping out a thank-you
by David Hinckley
New York Daily News
Many years before he became President Bartlett's aide Charlie on "The West Wing," Dulé Hill was watching TV and saw Gregory Hines dance.
"He did this step," says Hill. "If you saw it, you'd recognize it. He was kind of gliding across the stage. Like, one foot forward, one foot back."
Hill wasn't even a teenager yet. But he'd been dancing since he was 3. Jazz, tap, ballet. He knew steps. He tried this one. He couldn't nail it.
Some months later he was introduced to Hines, at the Joyce Theater.
"I told him I loved the step, but I couldn't figure it out," says Hill. "He showed it to me. I still couldn't get it. And he said, 'Don't worry. It'll come to you.'
"So one night I'm walking out to my parents' car - and I get the step. Like, that was it. He was right. It came to me."
Gregory Hines had that effect. "Passing it on" counts heavily in the arts, as it does in life, and Hines was generous with his time, talent and encouragement.
Friday at Town Hall, a Brooklyn tap-dance troupe called the Young Teenagers will salute Hines and a half-dozen other dancers who passed it on: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, Ann Miller, the Nicholas Brothers.
The Sidney Bechet Society Band, Carrie Smith and Byron Stripling will perform, and the emcee will be one of the last survivors from tap's golden age, Harold (Stumpy) Cromer.
Hill won't be there. But he says the spirit of Gregory Hines is never far away.
"Most dancers of my generation would say Gregory was one of their most important influences," says Hill, who is 29.
"He was the bridge from the Nicholas Brothers, John Bubbles, Buster Brown, Tip Tap and Toe and that generation. He was the tap-dancer everyone still knew when a lot of people said tap was dead.
"But I learned just as much from him as a person. When I moved to L.A. to do 'West Wing,' I didn't have family. Gregory was there. It's like he spread a fragrance on the Earth."
Gregory Hines, who died Aug. 9, was 6 when he debuted at the Apollo with his brother Maurice. The Hines Kids would be the next Nicholas Brothers, promoters said. Gregory laughed.
"I'd seen the Nicholas Brothers," he'd say. "I knew if there was one thing we were not, it was the Nicholas Brothers."
No matter. He tapped. He starred in movies, he produced movies, he had a sitcom, he cut records.
He was an all-around entertainer, like Sammy Davis Jr., and Hill says he also passed along that sense of possibility.
"I thought of myself as a dancer," says Hill. "If it weren't for Gregory, I probably wouldn't have stepped into acting."
So does he miss Hines? Obvious question. "Sure I do," says Hill. "But he's doing fine where he is. He's dancing."
Originally published on February 3, 2004
Posted by Jo at February 4, 2004 07:30 PM