October 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Donna McKechnie didn’t just dance in Broadway’s greatest shows — she helped build them.
Promises, Promises. Company. A Chorus Line.
Her artistry and emotional intelligence defined a generation of musical theatre.
But this episode isn’t just about the roles that made her famous — it’s about everything that led there:
a Michigan childhood spent dancing in borrowed classrooms, her move to New York at sixteen, and the partnership with Michael Bennett that changed Broadway forever.
Then came the turning point: a devastating illness that left her nearly immobile. Doctors said she’d never walk again, let alone dance.
This episode uncovers how she proved them wrong — the treatment, the discipline, and the unbreakable spirit that brought her back to the stage.
From The Music and the Mirror to Sweet Charity, this is the definitive story of a dancer who defined Broadway through movement, survived what should’ve ended her career, and came back stronger than ever.
Check out my Return to Dance docuseries!
Support my Instagram — where I post daily dance inspo, insights and fun! @backtogreat
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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[music]
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She was never chasing fame.
She was chasing work.
And in the process, she helped define an era of Broadway dance.
Welcome to "Hey Dancer" and another episode of my weekly series,
"The Rest of the Story."
I'm your host, Miller Daurey.
Make sure you are subscribed or following so you never miss an episode.
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And because all the platforms love that thing called "Engagement,"
you know, like, comment, share, please do that because it really helps my dance podcast
reach new people.
And that's the point.
I want to inspire as many as possible with these incredible inspirational stories of dance
legends.
All right, let's get into it.
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She was born on November 16, 1942.
In Pontiac, Michigan, her mother, Carolyn, was just 19,
a commercial art student at Cast Tech who left school when she became
a war bride.
Her father, Donald, was drafted soon after they married and sent to Europe where he fought
in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.
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While her dad was overseas, they stayed with her grandparents
in a small brick house in Huntington Woods.
It was a safe, steady place surrounded by gardens and quiet.
Her grandfather loved when she'd stand in the living room and recite little poems or nursery rhymes.
And once handed her a dollar for one of her performances,
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she barely knew what it meant, but the gesture left a mark, a small spark of what it felt like to be seen.
She was hospitalized for a time with cellulitis,
and when she finally recovered, her mother decided ballet might help rebuild her strength.
The classes were held on Saturdays at Patentville Elementary.
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Just down the street from their house, the desks were pushed aside, folding chairs became the ballet bar,
and an elderly Italian teacher, Mr. Cossetta, played scratchy 78s on a record player while
calling out the steps. It wasn't glamorous, but something about it felt right.
The rhythm, the focus, the quiet sense of belonging she hadn't felt anywhere else.
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Then the doors cracked open.
Around six years old, she watched the film The Red Shoes.
A technicolor story about a young ballerina torn between love and the stage,
the drama, the music, the look of it all.
It hit her somewhere deep, not long after she attended a performance of Swan Lake
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at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, where the celebrated Cuban dancer, Alicia Alonzo,
performed the role of Odette. It was her first time hearing a live orchestra,
and the sound and movement together made her want to cry.
From that night on, the stage wasn't just a dream.
It felt like a place she needed to reach.
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Her training deepened when her mother enrolled her at the Rothburden theatrical school,
which held its classes at the Downtown Convention Center in Detroit.
The lessons were more advanced than anything she'd taken before,
and they introduced her to a new kind of rigor under ballet teacher Pamela Dunworth,
who balanced strict discipline with imagination,
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teaching her to let energy move beyond the fingertips and toes.
Money was always tight. Her father's job barely covered the essentials,
and her grandparents often helped out, which only made things harder.
He hated accepting help.
The cost of dance lessons became one more strain in the middle of it all.
To keep this little girl enrolled in dance class,
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her mother sowed costumes for the school's recitals in exchange for reduced tuition,
often staying up late into the night,
stitching away after everyone else had gone to bed.
Dance wasn't just a pastime anymore,
it was something the two of them, mother and daughter, were quietly fighting for.
Eventually, she began studying with Rose Marie Floyd in Royal Oak,
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where the training became more formal and exacting,
Rose Marie taught the Chiquetti method,
a classical Italian system focused on structure, balance and musical precision.
There were exams, summer conventions, and guest classes with visiting artists.
By 12, her parents agreed to let her study for three weeks with the National Ballet of Canada.
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Her first time away from home, staying in a hotel,
taking company class and meeting professional dancers.
By 13, she was teaching ballet in her basement.
Charging 50 cents a class, what started as a few neighborhood kids quickly grew,
and before long she was earning up to $50 a week.
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Money she handed over to her parents when things were tight.
Sometimes it literally helped put food on the table.
Her father, who had been so critical of her dancing, surprised her.
He brought home a large used mirror, built a wooden ballet bar,
and mounted them along one wall.
So she could teach properly.
It was one of the few times she saw pride in his eyes.
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For a while, the tension in the house softened,
held together by the sound of a record player,
the "thud of small feet,"
and a daughter who was quietly helping keep the family afloat.
In 1956, the local Chiquetti teachers joined forces to form
the Detroit City Ballet and invited William Dollar,
a dancer and choreographer from American Ballet Theater.
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To create a new work for the company,
she was chosen as one of the 13 founding members,
a milestone that made everything she'd been working toward
feel suddenly possible.
Dollar paired her with future dance star Paul Sutherland.
Together, they danced a "pada da,"
set to Mendelssohn's concerto in G.
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She wasn't built like a classical ballerina,
but her movement had its own kind of poetry.
That supple back gave her freedom,
and her dancing was always driven by story, by feeling.
She approached every step like an actress would align,
shaping the emotion behind it.
People began to say, "When she dances, it's like she's in love."
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By her senior year, her father had taken over his father's
struggling business in Troy, along with all its debts.
The move brought new pressures at home,
and yet another new school.
Her third in just a few years,
friends changed, routines vanished,
and the strain inside the house kept growing
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through it all, the one steady thing was dance.
That winter, a friend convinced her to tag along to an audition
at the cast theater in Detroit.
A professional company was mounting four musicals,
including the King and I,
which happened to star Betty White as Anna,
and they needed just one female dancer
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from the area to join them.
She hadn't even planned to audition.
She showed up in street clothes,
borrowed a lead card from her friend right then in there,
and stepped onto the stage.
After running the combinations and executing some typical ballet steps
across the floor, she was chosen on the spot.
Her first equity card, her first paying job,
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and she was the youngest by far, to be hired.
For the first time, she wasn't just dreaming about performing,
she was doing it, rehearsing by day,
performing by night, earning real money for real work.
But that was still close to home, safe, supervised.
Then came the offer that changed everything,
a chance to go on tour.
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Four weeks of rehearsal in New York,
followed by six weeks of one-nighters across the South,
earning $75 a week, a chance to live and work
like a real professional.
But at home, the answer was no.
Her parents insisted she finished school.
After years of staying quiet, she finally erupted.
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The argument was volcanic, years of tension, frustration,
and control breaking loose in one night.
She packed a suitcase, slid it under her bed,
and when the house fell silent, she slipped out.
Her escape didn't last too long.
Her father tracked her down and brought her home,
but her decision had already been made.
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One of her most trusted ballet teachers
urged her parents to let her go, telling them,
"She'll survive or she'll come home."
At last, her parents relented, and so at 16,
she set out for New York City, scared yes,
but burning with purpose.
Every class, every step, every year of training
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had led to this.
Long bus rides, quick changes, long hours,
and a steady paycheck.
For the first time, she wasn't just in a show.
She was in the business.
When the tour ended, she stayed in New York.
She was 16 alone and determined not to go back home.
The YWCA on 34th Street became home.
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A single-cott, peeling paint, a thin door between her
and the noise outside.
During the day, she auditioned for anything she could find.
At night, she lay awake, listening to the sounds of the city,
equal parts terrified and thrilled.
Through a dance friend, she landed an audition
with American Ballet Theatre.
Co-founder of ABT herself, Lucie A. Chase, watched class,
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then told her kindly that she was a lovely dancer,
but too young.
She suggested training with the company for a year,
and that they would revisit her joining at such time.
To this young dancer, it didn't sound like encouragement.
It sounded humiliating, like rejection.
She didn't realize the honor that that actually was.
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The perfectionist in her turned inward,
and she spiraled into self-doubt.
The next day, she went to a jazz class,
not for discovery, but direction.
She'd taken jazz before, but this time, it felt different.
The freedom, the rhythm, the release.
It awakened something ballet had never touched.
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Almost immediately, something shifted.
She could dance from instinct instead of discipline.
She didn't know it yet, but that quiet choice
would shape her entire future on stage.
Still, the life of a young dancer in New York was brutal.
Rent was due, auditions were endless, and jobs were scarce.
She worked odd gigs, joined the ballet corps
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in Radio City Music Hall's Easter show for a bit,
then quit before opening night.
When she realized she'd barely get to dance,
it wasn't the artistry she'd fought for.
A call came from David Tamar, the director who had given her
that first break in Detroit.
He invited her to join the Carousel Theatre in Massachusetts
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for the summer season.
There, she danced in South Pacific,
Silk Stockings, Carousel, and Annie Get Your Gun with Ginger Rogers.
Back in New York, she went wherever the work was,
a commercial here, a trade show there,
until a touring company of West Side Story came along.
It was her first real encounter with Jerome Robbins' world,
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where movement, music, and emotion were fused into one language,
not switching between forms, but letting them exist together.
Her next big break came in 1961 with an audition for "Moderama."
A lavish live industrial show produced by General Motors,
the producers, Sy Fure and Ernest Martin,
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were so taken by her that they offered her not only the "Moderama" job,
but a spot in their upcoming Broadway musical,
"How to succeed in business without really trying."
After performing eight shows a week with "Moderama" in Los Angeles,
she returned to New York to begin,
rehearsals for "How to succeed" at the 46th Street Theatre.
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It was her Broadway debut.
She was just 18 the youngest in the cast.
Now, the original choreographer Hugh Lambert began the process,
but partway through rehearsals, he was replaced by Bob Fossi,
who reshaped the show with his distinct style.
His wife, Gwen Verden, served as his dance captain,
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quietly mentoring the young dancer through the process.
For her, it was like a crash course in musical theater,
a full education on the job.
She was performing eight shows a week and studying daily,
acting with Charles Nelson Riley and jazz with jazz dance pioneer,
Luigi, whose classes became a creative lifeline.
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By the end of the show's long run,
the shine of the chorus had worn off.
She'd seen firsthand how easily dancers were overlooked,
and she made herself a promise.
She would never disappear into the background again.
After her success, the next few years were a blur of near misses and rebuilding.
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But eventually, she joined the national tour of a funny thing happened
on the way to the forum as "Filia," her first singing and acting lead.
When the tour ended, another opportunity appeared.
One of her roommates was dating David Winters,
a dancer from the original West Side Story on Broadway
and was also featured in the movie,
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who was choreographing a new NBC show called "Hullabaloo."
The audition was a high-energy jazz class,
and she was one of only eight dancers chosen.
"Hullabaloo" was unlike anything on television,
a weekly music and dance series that featured the biggest pop acts of the day,
from the Beatles and the Supremes to Sunny and Share,
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with dancers performing behind them on a massive NBC soundstage.
Among those dancers was a young man from Buffalo named Michael Bennett.
He wasn't a choreographer yet,
but he already knew that's what he wanted to be.
They clicked immediately.
Her musicality matched his precision,
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and their partnership quickly became a favorite on the show.
During the second season, each dancer was asked to choreograph a short section for a group number.
Nervous and unsure, she turned to Michael for help. He created a drum solo for himself,
then choreographed her section, a circle of jet-taid turns that became the numbers highlight.
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That small act would change everything.
It was the first time he choreographed for her.
The first spark of what would become one of the most defining creative partnerships
in musical theater.
Broadway called again. In 1968, she was cast in promises promises with choreography by...
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you guessed it, Bennett. He built the number turkey lurky time around her,
a wild, high-energy showstopper that made her impossible to ignore.
Her dancing a mix of grace, fun, technique, athleticism,
jelly, a singular musicality.
Critics raved and Dance Magazine quoted her saying,
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"Promises was a turning point for me. For the past five or six years, I tried to give up dancing
for singing acting parts, but then, in promises, I realized, I really loved dancing.
It made me realize that you can sing and act without having to throw dancing away.
It's too much a part of me."
End quote.
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Between stage jobs, television kept her working, including a stint on the cult hit "Dark Shadows."
She worked on 24 episodes which brought her face into homes across America.
Then came company, a daring, modern musical about marriage, loneliness, and life in New York.
Harold Prince cast her without even having her audition.
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That was a first for her.
The show had only one true dance, TikTok, choreographed by Michael Bennett as a wordless portrait of
intimacy and isolation. She fought to keep that number in the show which was struggling in out of
town tryouts. But when the music and choreography were revised, it stopped the performance cold.
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Critics called it hypnotic, and the New York Times praised her by name.
A dancer finally seen as more than part of the chorus.
The show became a landmark hit, and her image landed on the cover of Dance Magazine.
There were other projects, a joyful noise, the education of Hyman Kaplan,
Call Me Madam, on the town.
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Each one, another survival gig in the long chain between hits.
But one constant remained.
Whenever Michael Bennett started something new, she was always among the first he called.
But work had slowed and so had hope.
She was tired of the same line from casting directors.
You're wonderful, but I don't know what to do with you.
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By her 30th birthday, she felt as if life had already passed her by.
Then came the call to choreograph Saundheim, a musical tribute,
a one night gala at the Schubert Theater.
It was her first time creating movement for others, a new way to stay connected to what she loved.
Weeks later, she performed alongside Gwen Verden, Helen Gallagher, and Paula Kelly,
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opening the 27th annual Tony Awards with It's Broadway.
A flash of light and applause, then back to uncertainty.
Not long after, over dinner, Michael Bennett told her about an idea he couldn't shake.
"I want to make a show about dancers," he said, "and I want to make it for you."
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Sometime later, Bennett gathered two dozen dancers in a small studio on 3rd Avenue.
It was nearly midnight.
They sat on the carpet with a jug of wine,
and a real-to-real tape recorder running while he explained what he wanted to do.
We're going to talk about dancing, what it means to be a dancer.
Each person took a turn telling their story,
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where they were born, why they danced, what it had cost them,
what was meant to last an hour went on until noon the next day.
The sessions continued over the following weeks with dancers dropping in and out,
their memories taped, transcribed, and shaped into composite characters.
Out of those circles, a chorus line began to take form.
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Her role emerged from that process,
a woman who'd left the chorus and wanted back in.
Some of her life bled into the part, years of near misses,
the exhaustion of starting over, but much of it was fiction,
and then came the number that would define both her and the show.
One night at Michael's apartment, she sat with Bob Aveen, drummer Bobby Thomas,
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and composer Marvin Hamlish, who was at the piano, sketching as they talked.
Together, they mapped the musical and emotional line of what would become
the music and the mirror.
It was the first time she'd worked so closely with a composer of that stature,
and she later said she'd never felt so creatively alive.
Dancing, acting, singing, and building something new with friends
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who believed in her.
When the show opened at the public theater in 1975, everything clicked.
The audience's silence at the final blackout broke into a roar that didn't stop.
Critics called it shattering.
The New York Times singled her out as wonderfully right.
By the time a chorus line transferred to Broadway's "Shoobert Theater"
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it had become a cultural event.
In December, she was on the cover of "Newsweek."
When awards season arrived, a chorus line swept everything in sight.
The tonies, the Pulitzer, and the hearts of audiences.
And when her name was called at the tonies for best lead actress in a musical,
she stood there, stunned, thinking Michael on national television,
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a moment that dreams are made of.
After a chorus line, you'd think the world would open its arms,
a Tony Award, a role that defined a generation,
but the calls stopped coming.
For nearly two years, she couldn't get in the room,
not even for roles modeled after her.
The industry had already moved on.
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Then came the next blow.
Her hands began to swell, red, burning, unrecognizable,
with in days every step hurt,
every movement felt like fire under the skin.
A friend in Florida introduced her to a local doctor who ran a quick blood test.
He came back with words she'd never heard before,
"Rumatoid factor."
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He told her it was likely "Rumatoid arthritis."
And there wasn't much she could do about it.
"Take some aspirin," he said.
"See a specialist if it doesn't improve."
It didn't.
Back in New York, she made her way slowly, painfully,
to a rheumatologist named Dr. Keen, one of the best in the city.
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He did the tests, the X-rays, the blood work.
When he came back into the room, his expression said it all,
"I'm afraid you do have "Rumatoid arthritis," he told her.
And it's not going to go away.
She stared at him, stunned, but I'm a dancer.
He didn't flinch.
Forget about dancing.
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Eventually, you won't be able to walk."
He told her to start thinking about nursing care,
24 hours a day.
The words barely made sense.
She felt her pulse pound, her body revolting at the idea,
inside her head a single word flashed like a billboard.
No.
She left his office numb.
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At home, she tried to be practical.
She had no steady income, just a few years left on her divorce settlement
and small royalties from a chorus line.
If she couldn't work, she couldn't live.
But in show business, weakness was dangerous,
so she kept the diagnosis secret, even from most friends.
The disease spread quickly.
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It reached her spine, her neck, her hands.
Her sister, Barbara, moved in to help.
Some mornings, it took both of them just to get her out of bed.
Every step was agony, like razor blades slicing into her joints.
She couldn't open doors, couldn't sit without pain.
And somehow, she laughed her way back.
One morning, forcing herself to move,
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she shuffled to the bathroom.
Leaning on the wall, she lowered herself onto the toilet,
and the sound of her own body hitting the seat made her laugh out loud.
It was absurd, humiliating, and it was human.
That laughter cracked something open.
If she could laugh, she could fight.
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A friend found a new doctor, one who treated chronic illness holistically.
His name was Dr. Sam Getlin.
He was 95 years old, saw patients only between 10 pm and 5 am,
and worked out of a ramshackle house in Trenton, New Jersey.
It sounded like madness, but she went.
He greeted her with a soft handshake and a simple order.
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Do what I say, no fussing.
Behind a partition, he dictated her new life.
A strict diet, mega-vitamin therapy, cleansing, rest, and calm.
If you follow this exactly, he told her,
"In three weeks, the pain will start to subside.
In six weeks, you'll walk again, and in a year, you could be dancing."
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She left with a notebook full of instructions and one strange comfort,
something she could do, something that gave her agency when everything else had been stripped away.
So she did it.
60 vitamins a day, lemon juice every morning, vegetable broth for meals, no exceptions, no short cuts.
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She watched Mr. Rogers to stay calm.
She whispered, "This feels good every time she took a warm bath,"
because the doctor told her to.
Reinforce those positive vibrations,
and little by little, the pain began to fade.
After three weeks, she could move more freely.
After six, she could walk.
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Months later, she began light yoga, one breath, one stretch at a time.
She paired it with therapy, facing down the grief and fear she'd buried for years.
If her mind had helped her cause the illness,
she believed a healthy mind could help her heal, and she had done it.
No miracle drug, no hidden cure, just discipline, will, and the refusal to give up her own story.
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The dancer who had just recently been told she'd never walk again was once again moving toward the light.
She was back in ballet class.
It was painful, slow, but it was movement, and it gave her purpose.
By 1979, she was back on stage in a small off-broadway play called "Wine Untouched."
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It wasn't glamorous, but it was proof she could still work,
and that was enough.
More small roles followed. In Chicago, she starred in "I'm Getting My Act Together
and Taking It on the Road," a fitting title for where she was headed,
rebuilding one step at a time.
By 1981, she moved to Los Angeles, chasing whatever came next.
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Television found her first, Aaron Spelling,
Castor in a TV movie called "Torrell," then came a guest role on the second episode of a brand new sitcom
called "Cheers." She popped up on family ties,
Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and most memorably, "Fame," dancing beside Debbie Allen in a show scene
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around the world. In 1983, having just turned 40, she returned to the Schubert Theatre for a
chorus line's tenth anniversary, "Gala." Hundreds of dancers who had performed the show around the
world came together that night, eleven castes among them. She was an older casty now, but wiser too.
The show that had once transformed her life had become a legacy, and she was still part of its pulse.
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Nine years had passed since she'd last danced the role. Then, in her early 40s, the invitation came.
To return to a chorus line once more, she threw herself into training with the same intensity she'd
had at twenty, yoga, pilates, and daily classes with Joe Tramaine, Stanley Holden,
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rebuilding her body for the role that had defined her. Ten years after she'd first performed a
chorus line, she was back at the same theatre in the same production playing the same part.
No actor had ever done that before, because no show had ever lasted that long.
To step into Cassie's heels again was something close to surreal. A dancer once told she was too old,
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now standing center stage in a musical about survival itself, the eight-week run stretched to eight
months, and critics called her return "Nothing short of miraculous, living proof of endurance made
visible." And then came another call, Bob Fossy. Years earlier, she had turned down one of his shows,
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a decision she quietly regretted. Now he was putting together a new national company of sweet charity
and wanted her for the lead. She tried to sound composed, asking about schedules even as her heart
pounded. After hanging up, she called her agent to say how thrilled she was to have an audition.
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Only to learn it wasn't an audition at all. It wasn't offer. Fossy had come to see her in a chorus line
six times before finally making the call. Now she would step into the role Gwen Verdon had created,
and when rehearsals began, Gwen was there, guiding her, generous and meticulous. It was the
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honor of a lifetime to be taught by Verdon under Fossy's watch, carrying the lineage of Broadway itself.
The tour was a success. Critics praised her for bringing warmth and grit to the role,
and for her it was more than a comeback. It was proof that after illness, silence, and rejection,
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she could still rise through dance, and the momentum kept building.
Can Can in London in 1988, and in the spring of '89 she toured Florida as Annie Oakley in Annie
Get Your Gun. By summer she was backward all began. A chorus line, taking the show on a 26
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city national tour. She was 46 now and proud of it. I love the fact that I am my age. She told an
interviewer. If I can be inspirational to people who think they're too old to do things,
I'd like to be that kind of person. In the 90s the pattern continued, "You never know," in Pasadena,
Annie Warbucks off Broadway, then came State Fair, a Broadway revival that brought her back to
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center stage and earned her the Fred Astaire Award for best female dancer of the season, alongside
Savion Glover. Years after most dancers would have retired, she was still holding her own among the best.
And when the offers slowed again, she made her own work. Her one-woman show inside the music opened
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in London in 1997 and earned raves from the Guardian and the Harold Tribune. Two years later, she starred
in follies at Paper Mill Playhouse with Steve and Stonthimes Blessing and critics called it the
performance of her career. By the early 2000s, she had built an entirely new life in Cabaret.
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Smaller stages, deeper truth, she sang, she taught, she performed, not for fame, not for nostalgia,
but because she couldn't not. The director of Wicked, Joe Mantello, had seen her performing her
sondheim concert in Palm Springs. A week later, she was offered the role of Madam Morrible,
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no audition, no warning at 81 years old. It had been decades since she'd done eight shows a week.
She doubled her pilates sessions, returned to vocal training and went to see the musical again.
This time, studying it not as an audience member, but as a woman stepping back into the fire.
Her interpretation was grounded, not grandiose. Morrible wasn't a villain to her, but a woman hungry
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for control, shaped by humiliation. And yet, when she appeared from the stage door every night,
the crowds leading outside felt familiar, the cheers, the tears, the thank yous, like echoes from
another era. I used to get that response in the chorus line, she said, "People would tell me it
changed their lives." And then, in 2025, she returned to the Schubert Theatre, the very stage where
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a chorus line was born, for its 50th anniversary celebration. It was a night unlike any other.
Generations of dancers gathered to honor the show's legacy, the originals, the revivals,
the ones who had carried the story around the world. When she took center stage, solo,
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the audience couldn't contain themselves. They rose before she even spoke, a roar of gratitude,
respect and love. She began Cassie's scene, the familiar dialogue leading into the music and the
mirror. Her voice, on point, steady the emotion still raw. She sang in the same key she had in 1975.
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As the music swelled, New Cassie's filled the stage, dancing the steps she made immortal.
But for that moment, it was hers again, and everyone in that theatre felt the weight of it.
Because she didn't just perform in the defining musicals of her era, she was instrumental in shaping
(32:43):
them. Promises promises, company, a chorus line, each one marked by the unmistakable truth and
quality of her movement. She didn't just live to dance. She danced in a way that will live forever.
Her name, Donna McKekney. And now you know the rest of the story.
[music]
(00:02):
She was never chasing fame.
She was chasing work.
And in the process, she helped define an era of Broadway dance.
Welcome to "Hey Dancer" and another episode of my weekly series,
"The Rest of the Story."
I'm your host, Miller Daurey.
Make sure you are subscribed or following so you never miss an episode.
(00:23):
And because all the platforms love that thing called "Engagement,"
you know, like, comment, share, please do that because it really helps my dance podcast
reach new people.
And that's the point.
I want to inspire as many as possible with these incredible inspirational stories of dance
legends.
All right, let's get into it.
(00:44):
She was born on November 16, 1942.
In Pontiac, Michigan, her mother, Carolyn, was just 19,
a commercial art student at Cast Tech who left school when she became
a war bride.
Her father, Donald, was drafted soon after they married and sent to Europe where he fought
in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.
(01:06):
While her dad was overseas, they stayed with her grandparents
in a small brick house in Huntington Woods.
It was a safe, steady place surrounded by gardens and quiet.
Her grandfather loved when she'd stand in the living room and recite little poems or nursery rhymes.
And once handed her a dollar for one of her performances,
(01:28):
she barely knew what it meant, but the gesture left a mark, a small spark of what it felt like to be seen.
She was hospitalized for a time with cellulitis,
and when she finally recovered, her mother decided ballet might help rebuild her strength.
The classes were held on Saturdays at Patentville Elementary.
(01:50):
Just down the street from their house, the desks were pushed aside, folding chairs became the ballet bar,
and an elderly Italian teacher, Mr. Cossetta, played scratchy 78s on a record player while
calling out the steps. It wasn't glamorous, but something about it felt right.
The rhythm, the focus, the quiet sense of belonging she hadn't felt anywhere else.
(02:14):
Then the doors cracked open.
Around six years old, she watched the film The Red Shoes.
A technicolor story about a young ballerina torn between love and the stage,
the drama, the music, the look of it all.
It hit her somewhere deep, not long after she attended a performance of Swan Lake
(02:35):
at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, where the celebrated Cuban dancer, Alicia Alonzo,
performed the role of Odette. It was her first time hearing a live orchestra,
and the sound and movement together made her want to cry.
From that night on, the stage wasn't just a dream.
It felt like a place she needed to reach.
(02:57):
Her training deepened when her mother enrolled her at the Rothburden theatrical school,
which held its classes at the Downtown Convention Center in Detroit.
The lessons were more advanced than anything she'd taken before,
and they introduced her to a new kind of rigor under ballet teacher Pamela Dunworth,
who balanced strict discipline with imagination,
(03:18):
teaching her to let energy move beyond the fingertips and toes.
Money was always tight. Her father's job barely covered the essentials,
and her grandparents often helped out, which only made things harder.
He hated accepting help.
The cost of dance lessons became one more strain in the middle of it all.
To keep this little girl enrolled in dance class,
(03:41):
her mother sowed costumes for the school's recitals in exchange for reduced tuition,
often staying up late into the night,
stitching away after everyone else had gone to bed.
Dance wasn't just a pastime anymore,
it was something the two of them, mother and daughter, were quietly fighting for.
Eventually, she began studying with Rose Marie Floyd in Royal Oak,
(04:04):
where the training became more formal and exacting,
Rose Marie taught the Chiquetti method,
a classical Italian system focused on structure, balance and musical precision.
There were exams, summer conventions, and guest classes with visiting artists.
By 12, her parents agreed to let her study for three weeks with the National Ballet of Canada.
(04:27):
Her first time away from home, staying in a hotel,
taking company class and meeting professional dancers.
By 13, she was teaching ballet in her basement.
Charging 50 cents a class, what started as a few neighborhood kids quickly grew,
and before long she was earning up to $50 a week.
(04:49):
Money she handed over to her parents when things were tight.
Sometimes it literally helped put food on the table.
Her father, who had been so critical of her dancing, surprised her.
He brought home a large used mirror, built a wooden ballet bar,
and mounted them along one wall.
So she could teach properly.
It was one of the few times she saw pride in his eyes.
(05:12):
For a while, the tension in the house softened,
held together by the sound of a record player,
the "thud of small feet,"
and a daughter who was quietly helping keep the family afloat.
In 1956, the local Chiquetti teachers joined forces to form
the Detroit City Ballet and invited William Dollar,
a dancer and choreographer from American Ballet Theater.
(05:35):
To create a new work for the company,
she was chosen as one of the 13 founding members,
a milestone that made everything she'd been working toward
feel suddenly possible.
Dollar paired her with future dance star Paul Sutherland.
Together, they danced a "pada da,"
set to Mendelssohn's concerto in G.
(05:56):
She wasn't built like a classical ballerina,
but her movement had its own kind of poetry.
That supple back gave her freedom,
and her dancing was always driven by story, by feeling.
She approached every step like an actress would align,
shaping the emotion behind it.
People began to say, "When she dances, it's like she's in love."
(06:19):
By her senior year, her father had taken over his father's
struggling business in Troy, along with all its debts.
The move brought new pressures at home,
and yet another new school.
Her third in just a few years,
friends changed, routines vanished,
and the strain inside the house kept growing
(06:40):
through it all, the one steady thing was dance.
That winter, a friend convinced her to tag along to an audition
at the cast theater in Detroit.
A professional company was mounting four musicals,
including the King and I,
which happened to star Betty White as Anna,
and they needed just one female dancer
(07:01):
from the area to join them.
She hadn't even planned to audition.
She showed up in street clothes,
borrowed a lead card from her friend right then in there,
and stepped onto the stage.
After running the combinations and executing some typical ballet steps
across the floor, she was chosen on the spot.
Her first equity card, her first paying job,
(07:24):
and she was the youngest by far, to be hired.
For the first time, she wasn't just dreaming about performing,
she was doing it, rehearsing by day,
performing by night, earning real money for real work.
But that was still close to home, safe, supervised.
Then came the offer that changed everything,
a chance to go on tour.
(07:45):
Four weeks of rehearsal in New York,
followed by six weeks of one-nighters across the South,
earning $75 a week, a chance to live and work
like a real professional.
But at home, the answer was no.
Her parents insisted she finished school.
After years of staying quiet, she finally erupted.
(08:07):
The argument was volcanic, years of tension, frustration,
and control breaking loose in one night.
She packed a suitcase, slid it under her bed,
and when the house fell silent, she slipped out.
Her escape didn't last too long.
Her father tracked her down and brought her home,
but her decision had already been made.
(08:28):
One of her most trusted ballet teachers
urged her parents to let her go, telling them,
"She'll survive or she'll come home."
At last, her parents relented, and so at 16,
she set out for New York City, scared yes,
but burning with purpose.
Every class, every step, every year of training
(08:48):
had led to this.
Long bus rides, quick changes, long hours,
and a steady paycheck.
For the first time, she wasn't just in a show.
She was in the business.
When the tour ended, she stayed in New York.
She was 16 alone and determined not to go back home.
The YWCA on 34th Street became home.
(09:11):
A single-cott, peeling paint, a thin door between her
and the noise outside.
During the day, she auditioned for anything she could find.
At night, she lay awake, listening to the sounds of the city,
equal parts terrified and thrilled.
Through a dance friend, she landed an audition
with American Ballet Theatre.
Co-founder of ABT herself, Lucie A. Chase, watched class,
(09:35):
then told her kindly that she was a lovely dancer,
but too young.
She suggested training with the company for a year,
and that they would revisit her joining at such time.
To this young dancer, it didn't sound like encouragement.
It sounded humiliating, like rejection.
She didn't realize the honor that that actually was.
(09:56):
The perfectionist in her turned inward,
and she spiraled into self-doubt.
The next day, she went to a jazz class,
not for discovery, but direction.
She'd taken jazz before, but this time, it felt different.
The freedom, the rhythm, the release.
It awakened something ballet had never touched.
(10:16):
Almost immediately, something shifted.
She could dance from instinct instead of discipline.
She didn't know it yet, but that quiet choice
would shape her entire future on stage.
Still, the life of a young dancer in New York was brutal.
Rent was due, auditions were endless, and jobs were scarce.
She worked odd gigs, joined the ballet corps
(10:39):
in Radio City Music Hall's Easter show for a bit,
then quit before opening night.
When she realized she'd barely get to dance,
it wasn't the artistry she'd fought for.
A call came from David Tamar, the director who had given her
that first break in Detroit.
He invited her to join the Carousel Theatre in Massachusetts
(11:00):
for the summer season.
There, she danced in South Pacific,
Silk Stockings, Carousel, and Annie Get Your Gun with Ginger Rogers.
Back in New York, she went wherever the work was,
a commercial here, a trade show there,
until a touring company of West Side Story came along.
It was her first real encounter with Jerome Robbins' world,
(11:23):
where movement, music, and emotion were fused into one language,
not switching between forms, but letting them exist together.
Her next big break came in 1961 with an audition for "Moderama."
A lavish live industrial show produced by General Motors,
the producers, Sy Fure and Ernest Martin,
(11:44):
were so taken by her that they offered her not only the "Moderama" job,
but a spot in their upcoming Broadway musical,
"How to succeed in business without really trying."
After performing eight shows a week with "Moderama" in Los Angeles,
she returned to New York to begin,
rehearsals for "How to succeed" at the 46th Street Theatre.
(12:06):
It was her Broadway debut.
She was just 18 the youngest in the cast.
Now, the original choreographer Hugh Lambert began the process,
but partway through rehearsals, he was replaced by Bob Fossi,
who reshaped the show with his distinct style.
His wife, Gwen Verden, served as his dance captain,
(12:28):
quietly mentoring the young dancer through the process.
For her, it was like a crash course in musical theater,
a full education on the job.
She was performing eight shows a week and studying daily,
acting with Charles Nelson Riley and jazz with jazz dance pioneer,
Luigi, whose classes became a creative lifeline.
(12:50):
By the end of the show's long run,
the shine of the chorus had worn off.
She'd seen firsthand how easily dancers were overlooked,
and she made herself a promise.
She would never disappear into the background again.
After her success, the next few years were a blur of near misses and rebuilding.
(13:11):
But eventually, she joined the national tour of a funny thing happened
on the way to the forum as "Filia," her first singing and acting lead.
When the tour ended, another opportunity appeared.
One of her roommates was dating David Winters,
a dancer from the original West Side Story on Broadway
and was also featured in the movie,
(13:32):
who was choreographing a new NBC show called "Hullabaloo."
The audition was a high-energy jazz class,
and she was one of only eight dancers chosen.
"Hullabaloo" was unlike anything on television,
a weekly music and dance series that featured the biggest pop acts of the day,
from the Beatles and the Supremes to Sunny and Share,
(13:56):
with dancers performing behind them on a massive NBC soundstage.
Among those dancers was a young man from Buffalo named Michael Bennett.
He wasn't a choreographer yet,
but he already knew that's what he wanted to be.
They clicked immediately.
Her musicality matched his precision,
(14:16):
and their partnership quickly became a favorite on the show.
During the second season, each dancer was asked to choreograph a short section for a group number.
Nervous and unsure, she turned to Michael for help. He created a drum solo for himself,
then choreographed her section, a circle of jet-taid turns that became the numbers highlight.
(14:39):
That small act would change everything.
It was the first time he choreographed for her.
The first spark of what would become one of the most defining creative partnerships
in musical theater.
Broadway called again. In 1968, she was cast in promises promises with choreography by...
(15:00):
you guessed it, Bennett. He built the number turkey lurky time around her,
a wild, high-energy showstopper that made her impossible to ignore.
Her dancing a mix of grace, fun, technique, athleticism,
jelly, a singular musicality.
Critics raved and Dance Magazine quoted her saying,
(15:22):
"Promises was a turning point for me. For the past five or six years, I tried to give up dancing
for singing acting parts, but then, in promises, I realized, I really loved dancing.
It made me realize that you can sing and act without having to throw dancing away.
It's too much a part of me."
End quote.
(15:42):
Between stage jobs, television kept her working, including a stint on the cult hit "Dark Shadows."
She worked on 24 episodes which brought her face into homes across America.
Then came company, a daring, modern musical about marriage, loneliness, and life in New York.
Harold Prince cast her without even having her audition.
(16:06):
That was a first for her.
The show had only one true dance, TikTok, choreographed by Michael Bennett as a wordless portrait of
intimacy and isolation. She fought to keep that number in the show which was struggling in out of
town tryouts. But when the music and choreography were revised, it stopped the performance cold.
(16:28):
Critics called it hypnotic, and the New York Times praised her by name.
A dancer finally seen as more than part of the chorus.
The show became a landmark hit, and her image landed on the cover of Dance Magazine.
There were other projects, a joyful noise, the education of Hyman Kaplan,
Call Me Madam, on the town.
(16:50):
Each one, another survival gig in the long chain between hits.
But one constant remained.
Whenever Michael Bennett started something new, she was always among the first he called.
But work had slowed and so had hope.
She was tired of the same line from casting directors.
You're wonderful, but I don't know what to do with you.
(17:12):
By her 30th birthday, she felt as if life had already passed her by.
Then came the call to choreograph Saundheim, a musical tribute,
a one night gala at the Schubert Theater.
It was her first time creating movement for others, a new way to stay connected to what she loved.
Weeks later, she performed alongside Gwen Verden, Helen Gallagher, and Paula Kelly,
(17:35):
opening the 27th annual Tony Awards with It's Broadway.
A flash of light and applause, then back to uncertainty.
Not long after, over dinner, Michael Bennett told her about an idea he couldn't shake.
"I want to make a show about dancers," he said, "and I want to make it for you."
(17:58):
Sometime later, Bennett gathered two dozen dancers in a small studio on 3rd Avenue.
It was nearly midnight.
They sat on the carpet with a jug of wine,
and a real-to-real tape recorder running while he explained what he wanted to do.
We're going to talk about dancing, what it means to be a dancer.
Each person took a turn telling their story,
(18:20):
where they were born, why they danced, what it had cost them,
what was meant to last an hour went on until noon the next day.
The sessions continued over the following weeks with dancers dropping in and out,
their memories taped, transcribed, and shaped into composite characters.
Out of those circles, a chorus line began to take form.
(18:43):
Her role emerged from that process,
a woman who'd left the chorus and wanted back in.
Some of her life bled into the part, years of near misses,
the exhaustion of starting over, but much of it was fiction,
and then came the number that would define both her and the show.
One night at Michael's apartment, she sat with Bob Aveen, drummer Bobby Thomas,
(19:06):
and composer Marvin Hamlish, who was at the piano, sketching as they talked.
Together, they mapped the musical and emotional line of what would become
the music and the mirror.
It was the first time she'd worked so closely with a composer of that stature,
and she later said she'd never felt so creatively alive.
Dancing, acting, singing, and building something new with friends
(19:30):
who believed in her.
When the show opened at the public theater in 1975, everything clicked.
The audience's silence at the final blackout broke into a roar that didn't stop.
Critics called it shattering.
The New York Times singled her out as wonderfully right.
By the time a chorus line transferred to Broadway's "Shoobert Theater"
(19:52):
it had become a cultural event.
In December, she was on the cover of "Newsweek."
When awards season arrived, a chorus line swept everything in sight.
The tonies, the Pulitzer, and the hearts of audiences.
And when her name was called at the tonies for best lead actress in a musical,
she stood there, stunned, thinking Michael on national television,
(20:16):
a moment that dreams are made of.
After a chorus line, you'd think the world would open its arms,
a Tony Award, a role that defined a generation,
but the calls stopped coming.
For nearly two years, she couldn't get in the room,
not even for roles modeled after her.
The industry had already moved on.
(20:38):
Then came the next blow.
Her hands began to swell, red, burning, unrecognizable,
with in days every step hurt,
every movement felt like fire under the skin.
A friend in Florida introduced her to a local doctor who ran a quick blood test.
He came back with words she'd never heard before,
"Rumatoid factor."
(20:59):
He told her it was likely "Rumatoid arthritis."
And there wasn't much she could do about it.
"Take some aspirin," he said.
"See a specialist if it doesn't improve."
It didn't.
Back in New York, she made her way slowly, painfully,
to a rheumatologist named Dr. Keen, one of the best in the city.
(21:19):
He did the tests, the X-rays, the blood work.
When he came back into the room, his expression said it all,
"I'm afraid you do have "Rumatoid arthritis," he told her.
And it's not going to go away.
She stared at him, stunned, but I'm a dancer.
He didn't flinch.
Forget about dancing.
(21:40):
Eventually, you won't be able to walk."
He told her to start thinking about nursing care,
24 hours a day.
The words barely made sense.
She felt her pulse pound, her body revolting at the idea,
inside her head a single word flashed like a billboard.
No.
She left his office numb.
(22:00):
At home, she tried to be practical.
She had no steady income, just a few years left on her divorce settlement
and small royalties from a chorus line.
If she couldn't work, she couldn't live.
But in show business, weakness was dangerous,
so she kept the diagnosis secret, even from most friends.
The disease spread quickly.
(22:22):
It reached her spine, her neck, her hands.
Her sister, Barbara, moved in to help.
Some mornings, it took both of them just to get her out of bed.
Every step was agony, like razor blades slicing into her joints.
She couldn't open doors, couldn't sit without pain.
And somehow, she laughed her way back.
One morning, forcing herself to move,
(22:45):
she shuffled to the bathroom.
Leaning on the wall, she lowered herself onto the toilet,
and the sound of her own body hitting the seat made her laugh out loud.
It was absurd, humiliating, and it was human.
That laughter cracked something open.
If she could laugh, she could fight.
(23:06):
A friend found a new doctor, one who treated chronic illness holistically.
His name was Dr. Sam Getlin.
He was 95 years old, saw patients only between 10 pm and 5 am,
and worked out of a ramshackle house in Trenton, New Jersey.
It sounded like madness, but she went.
He greeted her with a soft handshake and a simple order.
(23:30):
Do what I say, no fussing.
Behind a partition, he dictated her new life.
A strict diet, mega-vitamin therapy, cleansing, rest, and calm.
If you follow this exactly, he told her,
"In three weeks, the pain will start to subside.
In six weeks, you'll walk again, and in a year, you could be dancing."
(23:52):
She left with a notebook full of instructions and one strange comfort,
something she could do, something that gave her agency when everything else had been stripped away.
So she did it.
60 vitamins a day, lemon juice every morning, vegetable broth for meals, no exceptions, no short cuts.
(24:13):
She watched Mr. Rogers to stay calm.
She whispered, "This feels good every time she took a warm bath,"
because the doctor told her to.
Reinforce those positive vibrations,
and little by little, the pain began to fade.
After three weeks, she could move more freely.
After six, she could walk.
(24:35):
Months later, she began light yoga, one breath, one stretch at a time.
She paired it with therapy, facing down the grief and fear she'd buried for years.
If her mind had helped her cause the illness,
she believed a healthy mind could help her heal, and she had done it.
No miracle drug, no hidden cure, just discipline, will, and the refusal to give up her own story.
(25:03):
The dancer who had just recently been told she'd never walk again was once again moving toward the light.
She was back in ballet class.
It was painful, slow, but it was movement, and it gave her purpose.
By 1979, she was back on stage in a small off-broadway play called "Wine Untouched."
(25:26):
It wasn't glamorous, but it was proof she could still work,
and that was enough.
More small roles followed. In Chicago, she starred in "I'm Getting My Act Together
and Taking It on the Road," a fitting title for where she was headed,
rebuilding one step at a time.
By 1981, she moved to Los Angeles, chasing whatever came next.
(25:48):
Television found her first, Aaron Spelling,
Castor in a TV movie called "Torrell," then came a guest role on the second episode of a brand new sitcom
called "Cheers." She popped up on family ties,
Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and most memorably, "Fame," dancing beside Debbie Allen in a show scene
(26:10):
around the world. In 1983, having just turned 40, she returned to the Schubert Theatre for a
chorus line's tenth anniversary, "Gala." Hundreds of dancers who had performed the show around the
world came together that night, eleven castes among them. She was an older casty now, but wiser too.
The show that had once transformed her life had become a legacy, and she was still part of its pulse.
(26:36):
Nine years had passed since she'd last danced the role. Then, in her early 40s, the invitation came.
To return to a chorus line once more, she threw herself into training with the same intensity she'd
had at twenty, yoga, pilates, and daily classes with Joe Tramaine, Stanley Holden,
(26:58):
rebuilding her body for the role that had defined her. Ten years after she'd first performed a
chorus line, she was back at the same theatre in the same production playing the same part.
No actor had ever done that before, because no show had ever lasted that long.
To step into Cassie's heels again was something close to surreal. A dancer once told she was too old,
(27:25):
now standing center stage in a musical about survival itself, the eight-week run stretched to eight
months, and critics called her return "Nothing short of miraculous, living proof of endurance made
visible." And then came another call, Bob Fossy. Years earlier, she had turned down one of his shows,
(27:47):
a decision she quietly regretted. Now he was putting together a new national company of sweet charity
and wanted her for the lead. She tried to sound composed, asking about schedules even as her heart
pounded. After hanging up, she called her agent to say how thrilled she was to have an audition.
(28:10):
Only to learn it wasn't an audition at all. It wasn't offer. Fossy had come to see her in a chorus line
six times before finally making the call. Now she would step into the role Gwen Verdon had created,
and when rehearsals began, Gwen was there, guiding her, generous and meticulous. It was the
(28:33):
honor of a lifetime to be taught by Verdon under Fossy's watch, carrying the lineage of Broadway itself.
The tour was a success. Critics praised her for bringing warmth and grit to the role,
and for her it was more than a comeback. It was proof that after illness, silence, and rejection,
(28:54):
she could still rise through dance, and the momentum kept building.
Can Can in London in 1988, and in the spring of '89 she toured Florida as Annie Oakley in Annie
Get Your Gun. By summer she was backward all began. A chorus line, taking the show on a 26
(29:14):
city national tour. She was 46 now and proud of it. I love the fact that I am my age. She told an
interviewer. If I can be inspirational to people who think they're too old to do things,
I'd like to be that kind of person. In the 90s the pattern continued, "You never know," in Pasadena,
Annie Warbucks off Broadway, then came State Fair, a Broadway revival that brought her back to
(29:40):
center stage and earned her the Fred Astaire Award for best female dancer of the season, alongside
Savion Glover. Years after most dancers would have retired, she was still holding her own among the best.
And when the offers slowed again, she made her own work. Her one-woman show inside the music opened
(30:03):
in London in 1997 and earned raves from the Guardian and the Harold Tribune. Two years later, she starred
in follies at Paper Mill Playhouse with Steve and Stonthimes Blessing and critics called it the
performance of her career. By the early 2000s, she had built an entirely new life in Cabaret.
(30:23):
Smaller stages, deeper truth, she sang, she taught, she performed, not for fame, not for nostalgia,
but because she couldn't not. The director of Wicked, Joe Mantello, had seen her performing her
sondheim concert in Palm Springs. A week later, she was offered the role of Madam Morrible,
(30:44):
no audition, no warning at 81 years old. It had been decades since she'd done eight shows a week.
She doubled her pilates sessions, returned to vocal training and went to see the musical again.
This time, studying it not as an audience member, but as a woman stepping back into the fire.
Her interpretation was grounded, not grandiose. Morrible wasn't a villain to her, but a woman hungry
(31:10):
for control, shaped by humiliation. And yet, when she appeared from the stage door every night,
the crowds leading outside felt familiar, the cheers, the tears, the thank yous, like echoes from
another era. I used to get that response in the chorus line, she said, "People would tell me it
changed their lives." And then, in 2025, she returned to the Schubert Theatre, the very stage where
(31:36):
a chorus line was born, for its 50th anniversary celebration. It was a night unlike any other.
Generations of dancers gathered to honor the show's legacy, the originals, the revivals,
the ones who had carried the story around the world. When she took center stage, solo,
(31:57):
the audience couldn't contain themselves. They rose before she even spoke, a roar of gratitude,
respect and love. She began Cassie's scene, the familiar dialogue leading into the music and the
mirror. Her voice, on point, steady the emotion still raw. She sang in the same key she had in 1975.
(32:22):
As the music swelled, New Cassie's filled the stage, dancing the steps she made immortal.
But for that moment, it was hers again, and everyone in that theatre felt the weight of it.
Because she didn't just perform in the defining musicals of her era, she was instrumental in shaping
(32:43):
them. Promises promises, company, a chorus line, each one marked by the unmistakable truth and
quality of her movement. She didn't just live to dance. She danced in a way that will live forever.
Her name, Donna McKekney. And now you know the rest of the story.
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CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.