Knockout Numbers

Jerome Robbins

BOOKS

In the development of dance in show business (show business in the best sense) there was a dramatic and major influence embodied in the work of choreographer Jack Cole. Except for those within the profession who are aware of him, he is today practically unknown. But all those familiar with his work acknowledge his wonderful talent and his seminal contribution to dance. Unsung Genius, by Glenn Loney (Franklin Watts), is an attempt to restore Cole to the public eye. The book isn’t good (and I’ll get to that). But a chance to talk about Cole and what he created shouldn’t be passed up.

He was a man of enormous talent. Cole (dance heritage: Ruth St. Denis, Oriental; Ted Shawn, male athleticism) was drawn to the dances of the East and West Indies, and to African, LatinAmerican, and our own popular dancing. From them he forged a startlingly original and innovative vocabulary of his own, which required strict, arduous training. He himself was an amazing dancer. Packed into his body were fierce discipline, controlled furies, exuberant sexiness, immaculate clarity, athletic ardor, and a surprising, cutting humor. His own dancers were honed by his classes and rehearsals, and lashed as well by his frustrations. In his choreography, their movements, though rhythmically and kinetically complex, were exceptionally clear to the eye, spectacular whether gigantic or minuscule, tight without being restrictive, tense without being full of tension, sexy whether the dancer was male or female, and openly celebratory of that aspect. Sophisticated, dynamic, elegant, and subtle, his dancing and choreography of the forties and fifties were a knockout experience to see.

Cole’s work, spanning the years from the mid-thirties to the early seventies, had its first great impact in, of all places, supper clubs. Then he went on to Broadway shows, most of which were short-lived, some of which he walked away from, and in some of which he was replaced. (Our paths crossed when I took over for him in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.) Where he finished his assignments, his choreography could be superb. His work for the 1948 musical Magdalena remains a Himalayan peak in American musical theater. Extraordinary in every respect, those dances spilled one after another in glorious variety onto the stage of the Ziegfeld Theatre. Although I saw the show twice, I can’t remember anything of its plot, but I do remember that Cole’s part in it was masterly. His dances, small-scale or with full company, to the Villa-Lobos score were a marvel and an inspiration.

Some of Cole’s work can still be seen in movie musicals, particularly those in which Marilyn Monroe appeared (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, among others). In Hollywood, Cole was given his own company of dancers and weeks on end to prepare a number that would last only minutes on the screen. This was fortunate, for on Broadway he was a notorious nonfinisher of work. Not that he was lazy. From early on, choreographing could be for him an experience agonizing to get through, and very often he didn’t.

But Cole’s contributions were so farreaching that without him present-day theatrical dancing would not be the same. Everyone teaching jazz dance today teaches much of what Cole founded and codified. All commercial-video dance reflects Cole’s work. Indeed, the heritage is so strong that one can catch glimmers of it even in Michael Jackson’s wonderful pieces.

Cole was neither unknown nor unsung during his career. He was given terrific reviews by the most serious of dance critics. Then why isn’t he known to the general public today? Because he didn’t leave behind any extensive body of choreography—he left a way of dancing, a style and a technique that are now incorporated into the lexicon of theatrical dance. Unfortunately, there is no Jack Cole repertory as such. The pieces he made for film, as good as they are, were designed as vehicles for movie stars—Jane Russell, Betty Grable, Monroe—rather than for his own dancers. His best work on Broadway was rarely in shows that ran for long. His club work disappeared, or was so usurped by his disciples that it became stereotyped. Added to all of this, his behavior was so outrageous that after a while it short-circuited his career. Cole was a demon dancer beset by his own devils. His fierce, complicated anger at life, which gave his work such a sharp edge, also sabotaged him. And Cole was outrageous, stunningly so. He walked offstage in the middle of a performance, abused his dancers (sometimes physically), broke conductors' batons in front of audiences, and left shows during rehearsals or out-of-town tryouts (and once even during casting). He had the temper tantrums of a child whenever any little thing didn’t go exactly his way. (He had a miserable childhood.) It was as if Cole, finding the world imperfect, was trying to choreograph a superperfect world of his own, where people—dancers—behaved ideally and exactly as he wanted. And when that didn’t happen—watch out.

Jack Cole left his mark, unrecognized by today’s public. In this he is like many others, among them Robert Alton, the reigning Broadway choreographer of the thirties and forties, whose work in the original Pal Joey should be celebrated along with that of Balanchine and de Mille for having helped to bring innovation to musical productions. Cole ended his career teaching at U.C.L.A. He died in 1974 in California.

Lamentably, Glenn Loney’s book is maudlin, movie-magazinish, exasperating in structure, and whining in tone. It is overweighted with gossip, and the writing about dance itself is cosmetic; the author seems more excited by Cole’s bizarre appearance and erratic behavior (punching Gwen Verdon, etc.). To bolster the premise of his title, Loney falls back on unnamed gossip columnists and includes tributes from Hollywood stars, talents not so admired by Cole himself. The dancer-disciples, quoted repeatedly, are touchingly devoted to Cole, but in trying to get him due recognition they occasionally stumble into belittling others, and some of their opinions are an embarrassment to his memory. Cole’s stature needs no such pettiness.

At times, Loney lets Cole speak for himself, and the quality of perception clearly shifts upward. Actually, the book is more revelatory about Cole if one has the patience to read between the lines. There is a story that could have been moving, and it is disappointing that Loney, with all the materials available to him, missed it.

I hardly knew Cole personally; ours was a handshake acquaintance. But I do know some of his dancers mentioned in the book. Their attitude after reading it—or at least the parts previously published—is: Well, poorly done, but some book is better than none. I wonder. Perhaps Cole himself would have said, as at an audition of dancers, “Thank you. Sorry. Next!”