THE NICHOLAS BROTHERS: GREATEST DANCERS - Fred Astaire thought their "Jumpin Jive" climax in "Stormy Weather" (see 10/9 post) the best faucet dance variety ever filmed. Balanchine and Barishnikov conjointly claimed them as among their prime picks as greatest dancers ever. Gregory Hines said that if they ever created a biopic regarding them they'd got to use pc generated effects since no one may probably copy them.
So who were these Nicholas Brothers? Fayard Nicholas (his 1st name looks like the birth certificate guy at the hospital mis-heard a unique name--perhaps "Theodore"?) and Harold Nicholas (his younger brother) were self-taught show-biz children from the south, 1st watching dancers perform in vaudeville shows in Philadelphia throughout the 1920's during which their father played drums and their mother played piano. Fayard got the concept of inventing an act. Harold elapsed with it. Somehow, they developed their own extraordinary style--part faucet, part swing. half eccentric dancing, half acrobatic, alittle Charleston and plenty of hip-hop (sixty years before the term was coined).
Their appearences in movies are all too few, however every may be a delight and never but breathtaking. Fayard lived into his nineties--he died last year-- still choreographing, lecturing, keeping the art of faucet alive. Harold died within the 1990's. Below is my nomination for SECOND GREATEST TAP-DANCE variety EVER FILMED (first, of course, attending to "Jumping Jive"...). this can be the title song from the 1941 Fox musical, "Down Argentine approach." (Don't be thrown by the Spanish--?--narration at the start. It goes away in a very heartbeat). Things to appear for: the weird approach Fayard "controls" Harold's space--playing him as if he is a puppet-master...the jumping over the hankercheif trick...and after all, that outrageously exciting last chorus.
