July 26, 2025 • 20 mins
Gregory Hines was a child tap dance star at the Apollo by six. Danced on Broadway by seven. And grew up touring the world with his brother Maurice.
But just when it looked like he had it all —
he stepped away.
And when he returned…
he didn’t just dance.
He changed the form itself.
He called it Improvography:
tap that swung, breathed, and broke the mold.
Tap as jazz. Tap as truth.
From Eubie! to The Cotton Club,
White Nights to Tap,
this episode traces his rise from child prodigy to genre-shaping icon —
a dancer who didn’t just revive tap… he pulled it into the future.
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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
He didn't just revive tap dance, he reinvented it.
(00:06):
Welcome back to "Hey Dancer" and my weekly series "The Rest of the Story".
I'm your host Miller Daurey and if you're new here, this is where we dig deep into the
dancers and choreographers who changed everything, whether or not the world ever learned their
names.
Make sure you're following or subscribed wherever you're watching or listening and you
(00:27):
can support the podcast by just doing, you know, all the engagement things, like, like,
comment and share.
It tells the platform that these dance stories matter.
Alright, let's get into it.
He was born on Valentine's Day in 1946 in New York City.
His mother, Alma, was a homemaker.
His father, Maurice Senior, played semi-pro baseball before becoming a jazz drummer.
(00:52):
The family lived in Brooklyn, Bedford Stivacent to be exact, but they're
creative heart.
It lived uptown in Harlem.
There were two boys in the family, Maurice and his younger brother, just two years apart,
and from the time they could walk, they were dancing, jumping around the apartment, making
rhythms with their feet always in motion.
(01:13):
It was their uncle who knew of a local studio offering free dance classes for kids and
suggested they check it out.
Their mother agreed, so she brought both boys to the Wally Wanger Dance Studio, right off
a hundred and twenty-fifth street, just down the block from the Apollo.
The teacher asked the older brother, "What can you do?"
(01:33):
He replied, "I can turn around," and then he popped six pirouettes on one foot.
They signed him up on the spot.
But his little brother, Wally Wanger, turned him away.
Too young, they said, he won't retain anything.
But every day, Maurice would come home from class and teach his little brother the steps
(01:54):
and every day that little boy picked them up instantly.
He didn't need counts or repetition.
He just got it.
Eventually, the studio gave in and let the little brother in, but they weren't getting
much beyond the basics, just a handful of early lessons.
Their father said, we got to find a teacher for them, and they did.
(02:16):
They found Henry Lattang.
Lattang was already a legend, known for training some of the top black tap dancers.
He didn't teach steps like most teachers.
He'd take you by the hand and sing the rhythm as you danced it.
He taught you to dance the music, not just the count.
And from the very first class, he saw something different in these two boys.
(02:41):
One day, Lattang was teaching a packed class when he noticed something strange.
The other kids had stopped.
They weren't dancing.
They weren't asking questions.
They were just staring all of them at the two brothers still dancing in the middle of
the room.
That's when Lattang knew.
These two had charisma.
(03:03):
He asked to teach them privately, just the two of them.
He even told their mother, when they dance, they look at each other like they're actually
happy to be doing it together.
That's what audiences feel.
That is what makes them different.
So Lattang began choreographing custom routines for them, inspired by the Nicholas
brothers.
(03:23):
They didn't have the acrobatics, but they had something else.
Slick music, herity, airtight rhythm, and a playful chemistry you couldn't fake.
By ages 5 and 7, they were ready.
Lattang brought them to amateur night at the Apollo.
Dina Washington was there that night.
She took one look and said, "They're too cute.
(03:43):
If they compete, they'll win just because of that."
So she didn't let them enter the contest.
But she did let them perform.
She was a special treat for the audience.
And once they started dancing, the crowd lit up.
They weren't just cute.
They could really tap dance.
Dina was impressed and told the theater to bring them back the following week, this time
(04:07):
to perform with Ruth Brown.
That's how it started.
Soon the Apollo became their second home.
They rehearsed in the basement of the theater on the exact same kind of wood floor as the
stage above.
For tap dancers, that mattered.
It wasn't just smooth, it sang.
The sound was clean, full alive, its own sound.
(04:30):
Tap dancers from that era are on record saying that no tap floor ever sounded better.
These brothers got to watch and learn from the best.
Chuck Green, baby Lawrence, honey coals, bunny brigs, Teddy Hale.
These weren't abstract legends.
They were real.
And right there, teaching, encouraging, and always watching.
(04:51):
They'd hand over a step to the young boys and tell them to make it theirs.
They didn't want copies.
They wanted soul.
They wanted their voices.
And these two brothers, they had one.
Together.
The younger brother had a lightning fast pickup.
He could watch a combination once and do it.
He was more athletic and modeled himself after Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers.
(05:16):
The older brother took his time to learn it, but remembered everything.
He was more graceful and studied the arms and smoothness of Feyard Nicholas.
So they taught each other over and over every day.
That was their system.
That was their rhythm.
That was their bond.
And from that bond, a fire was lit.
(05:36):
They became known as the Heinz kids and other times the Heinz brothers.
And then in 1954, an opportunity to audition for their first Broadway show, The Girl in Pink
Tite's Quarring Grap, by Agnes Demille.
The production needed just one boy for a small role.
Both brothers auditioned, but Demille told their mother, "We only have room for one.
(06:00):
Mom didn't flinch.
Nope, I can't break them up.
They're a set."
Demille raised an eyebrow.
Don't you know who I am?
Then came a compromise.
Demille said, "I know their teacher, Henry Littang.
If the little one can learn a soft shoe in 20 minutes, I'll take them both."
Well, he did.
And just like that, they were on Broadway at just 7 and 9 years old.
(06:24):
That role opened doors.
Soon, they were performing in variety theaters across the US, working the cat skills touring
Canada, even booking gigs overseas.
At one point, they were so in demand, they enrolled in a professional children school, alongside
kids like Patty Duke, Salminio, and Sandra D just to keep up with the travel.
(06:46):
They weren't just working dancers.
They were child stars.
By 1959, they were performing in London, teenagers now, but already seasoned pros.
But something had shifted.
As the older brother later put it, "Dancing had gone out just as we had gotten into it,"
and his younger brother explained why.
(07:07):
"As African Americans in the 60s started to become more aware of their own beauty and their
own sense of self, there were certain aspects of show business African Americans felt they
had to let go and move forward.
And I could certainly understand that, and tap dancing was one of those things."
Tap didn't feel like the future anymore, so they made a choice to stop.
(07:32):
They asked their mom what she thought.
She said, "If that's what you want to do, do it."
Their father, Maurice Senior, had been working as a salesman when he taught himself to play
drums, eventually performing in clubs and local jazz trios.
But in 1963, when his sons pivoted from tap to singing, they asked him to join them
(07:52):
on stage.
At first, he played behind them, but before long, he stepped into the spotlight.
That's how Heinz, Heinz, and Dad was born.
The act clicked, musical, comedic, polished.
They weren't doing rhythm tap anymore, but they still danced, soft-shoot, jazz, physical
comedy.
The gigs rolled in, nightclubs, resort hotels, military bases, and extended stints in Vegas
(08:19):
and the cat skills.
But their real proving ground?
The Playboy Club.
By the early 60s, there was one in nearly every major city.
It was fast-paced, variety-driven, and full of casting agents.
A kind of modern-day Vodville.
Maurice, the older brother, would later call it the "training ground."
(08:39):
They were doing five shows a night.
It was during one of those nights at the Playboy Club that everything changed.
They had auditioned for the Tonight Show seven or eight times and been rejected every
time.
Not by Johnny Carson, of course, but by his bookers and producers until this one night, when
(09:00):
Carson was there at the Playboy Club and he saw them live.
He booked them personally.
And when they finally hit the Tonight Show, it changed everything.
Now it wasn't their first time on TV.
They had already appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, which brought them a few months' worth
of bookings.
(09:21):
But Carson made them a national staple.
They became regulars.
For nearly five years, they were on the Tonight Show almost every other week until Carson
moved his show to the West Coast.
From Carson, the act truly leveled up.
They opened for Ella Fitzgerald on the Vegas strip.
(09:42):
They met one of their idols, Sammy Davis Jr., and worked the same circuit as the Rat Pack.
They were doing classic standards with full-swing arrangements, smooth vocals, tight movement,
undeniable stage presence.
They weren't just working, they were thriving.
But after almost twenty years of that grind, the younger brother felt something slipping,
(10:04):
and at twenty-nine, he left the act, walked away from the spotlight, the schedule, the scene,
and moved across the country to Venice Beach, California, where he disappeared from the
dance world completely.
He played in a jazz rock band called Severance, lived simply, walked the boardwalk, took time
(10:26):
to figure out who he was without the spotlight.
He loved it.
It was quiet, creative, free.
He stayed for five years.
But after a divorce, he made a decision.
He wanted to be closer to his daughter in New York.
She had spent summers with him, but it wasn't enough.
From this time, his brother had just landed the Pippin tour, and told him to come live
(10:48):
with him, that he would take care of him.
So he did, with nothing but forty dollars, a guitar and a backpack, he moved back to New
York.
But by the time he arrived, Pippin had fallen through.
Still, his brother had already submitted him for an audition, a new show called The Last
Minstrel Show.
(11:08):
He booked it that same day.
It wasn't a hit, the show closed out of town in Philadelphia, but it gave him a paycheck,
a foothold, and a way back in.
Within weeks, he auditioned for a new Broadway musical, UB.
He wasn't cast.
So he called the producer directly and said, "There must be some mistake.
(11:29):
I was great.
You've got to give me another shot."
They let him audition again.
Still, no offer.
But he kept pushing and calling.
The choreographer happened to be Henry Littane.
Yeah, the same one who trained him and his brother when they were kids, and actually his
brother was already cast.
And finally, on the second day of rehearsal, they gave him the job.
(11:53):
He hadn't danced professionally in years.
He was scared, he couldn't do it, but once the music started, he did.
This wasn't the same tap though, from his childhood.
It was Jazier, Lucer, a little rough around the edges.
And even though the choreography was set, he started finding a different rhythm, his own voice.
(12:14):
He didn't want tap to live in the past.
He wanted it to evolve.
UB was the beginning of that evolution, and it earned him his first Tony nomination.
From there, the roles got bigger.
In coming up town, he played Scrooge, his first leading role on Broadway, another Tony nomination.
Then came sophisticated ladies.
(12:36):
A hit review of Duke Ellington's music, where he starred alongside Judith Jamison, another
Tony nomination.
That's for three shows, three years in a row, the critics noticed.
So did the audiences.
That show had cracked something open, gave him room to improvise, push boundaries, steal the
(12:57):
spotlight, and he ran with it.
He actually filmed his first movie role in a supernatural thriller called Wolfen, but it
got held up in post.
So his big screen debut came a little later in Mel Brooks' history of the world, part
1.
From there, the roles kept coming, deal of the century, the Muppets Take Manhattan.
(13:21):
But the breakthrough, that came in 1984.
A new film was in the works, The Cotton Club, directed by Francis
Ford Coppola.
He heard there was a part he might be right for.
His agent said the script wasn't available, but it was sitting right there in the office.
So when no one was looking, he took it, slipped it into the bathroom, and read the whole thing,
(13:45):
and he knew instantly.
Cab Callaway wasn't the part he wanted.
He wanted the lead.
So he slipped back his hair through on a 1940 suit, and showed up, uninvited.
At the home of Robert Evans, the film's producer, Evans told him the part had already been offered
to Richard Pryor.
Didn't matter, he kept calling, kept showing up.
(14:08):
He even admitted he got close to being obnoxious, but it worked.
Evans eventually gave him the role, and The Cotton Club became his film breakout.
It was a dream part, not just for the acting, but the dancing, and not just any dancing.
This one brought him back to his roots.
(14:29):
His brother was in the film too, playing his on-screen partner, just like the old days.
Coppola wanted a tap number between them, a tribute to what they used to be.
So Henry Littang, their childhood teacher, stepped in to choreograph it.
Talk about synergy.
Again, he grabbed them by the hands, just like he had decades earlier, and taught them
(14:52):
the number the night before filming.
Vincent can be of the New York Times wrote about our guy, quote, "He doesn't sneak up on you.
He's so laid back, so self-assured and so graceful, where they're acting as an ambitious hoover
or tap dancing, alone or in tandem with his brother Maurice, that he forces you to sneak
(15:14):
up on him."
The vitality and comic intelligence that have made him a New York favorite in UB and sophisticated
ladies translate easily to the screen.
End quote.
That review wasn't just praise, it captured something deeper.
In those years after UB and sophisticated ladies, his dancing started to shift.
(15:35):
The counts got looser, the phrasing less fixed.
He even coined a term for what he was doing, improv-ography.
Tap that wasn't set, tap that breathed.
He treated his shoes like a jazz kit, stretching rhythms, slicing mid-phrase, shifting direction
on instinct.
What mattered wasn't how it looked, it was how it felt, how it sounded.
(15:58):
Tap historian Sally Summer called it, quote, "a cascade of taps like pebbles tossed
across the floor."
Even his posture changed, he danced low, grounded, like he was squeezing sound from the stage.
This was the early 80s and dancers were watching.
Diane Walker, one of the few black women leading in tap at the time, saw him perform on a
(16:22):
later appearance of the Tonight Show, dancing with no music, just rhythm, presence, and the
quiet announcement that his son had been born.
She said it was the first time she realized tap could be honest.
That was his gift, not just technique, but truth in motion.
That evolution continued with white knights.
(16:44):
A duet project built around two stars, Mikhail Burishnikov, and the man who could match
him in rhythm, power, and presence.
The choreography was by twilight tharp, structured, but not rigid.
There was space to improvise, space to listen and react.
It took weeks for them to sink, learn to share rhythm, tempo, weight, and when they did,
(17:10):
it became one of the rarest things in film.
Tap and ballet, side by side, two dance languages, treated as equals.
For dancers, it was a landmark.
A dance movie that didn't relegate tap to novelty or nostalgia, it put it on par with
the classics.
Then came the movie tap, his dream project.
(17:33):
He played a young ex-con trying to reclaim his legacy, opposite his idol.
Sammy Davis Jr. and the cast, a who's who of tap, Sandman Sims, Bunny Briggs, Harold Nicholas
Steve Condos.
It was the first dance film to merge traditional tap with rock and funk, a signal to a new generation.
(17:55):
Tap didn't have to sound old.
Sammy was passing the torch and he was ready to carry it.
Then back to Broadway.
Jellies last jam.
He played Jelly Roll Morton.
Musical genius, flawed man, unreliable narrator.
It was his greatest stage role.
He sang, he acted, he danced, and this time tap wasn't just spectacle, it was narrative.
(18:21):
And after three prior nominations, he won the Tony for best actor in a musical.
Even at the height of his career, he never stopped giving back.
He taught kids, he ran workshops.
He returned year after year to Anne Reineking's Broadway theater project, taught tap dance
master classes at UCLA, helping the next generation find their rhythm.
(18:45):
He didn't just preserve tap, he passed it on.
And still, the work never stopped.
After Jelly's last jam, he kept working, he kept dancing.
On film, on television, on stage, waiting to exhale, will embrace his own sitcom, Bojangles,
where he stepped into the role of another tap icon and earned an Emmy nomination for his
(19:09):
work.
His presence was quiet, but undeniable.
Not just a star, a standard.
He passed away in 2003, at only 57 years old, after a private battle with cancer.
Years later, the US Postal Service issued a black heritage stamp in his honor.
It wasn't just a tribute, it was a reminder that tap could speak.
(19:33):
That rhythm could evolve, that one dancer could bring it into the future and be remembered
for it.
His name, Gregory Heins, and now you know the rest of the story.
(19:58):
(light music)
He didn't just revive tap dance, he reinvented it.
(00:06):
Welcome back to "Hey Dancer" and my weekly series "The Rest of the Story".
I'm your host Miller Daurey and if you're new here, this is where we dig deep into the
dancers and choreographers who changed everything, whether or not the world ever learned their
names.
Make sure you're following or subscribed wherever you're watching or listening and you
(00:27):
can support the podcast by just doing, you know, all the engagement things, like, like,
comment and share.
It tells the platform that these dance stories matter.
Alright, let's get into it.
He was born on Valentine's Day in 1946 in New York City.
His mother, Alma, was a homemaker.
His father, Maurice Senior, played semi-pro baseball before becoming a jazz drummer.
(00:52):
The family lived in Brooklyn, Bedford Stivacent to be exact, but they're
creative heart.
It lived uptown in Harlem.
There were two boys in the family, Maurice and his younger brother, just two years apart,
and from the time they could walk, they were dancing, jumping around the apartment, making
rhythms with their feet always in motion.
(01:13):
It was their uncle who knew of a local studio offering free dance classes for kids and
suggested they check it out.
Their mother agreed, so she brought both boys to the Wally Wanger Dance Studio, right off
a hundred and twenty-fifth street, just down the block from the Apollo.
The teacher asked the older brother, "What can you do?"
(01:33):
He replied, "I can turn around," and then he popped six pirouettes on one foot.
They signed him up on the spot.
But his little brother, Wally Wanger, turned him away.
Too young, they said, he won't retain anything.
But every day, Maurice would come home from class and teach his little brother the steps
(01:54):
and every day that little boy picked them up instantly.
He didn't need counts or repetition.
He just got it.
Eventually, the studio gave in and let the little brother in, but they weren't getting
much beyond the basics, just a handful of early lessons.
Their father said, we got to find a teacher for them, and they did.
(02:16):
They found Henry Lattang.
Lattang was already a legend, known for training some of the top black tap dancers.
He didn't teach steps like most teachers.
He'd take you by the hand and sing the rhythm as you danced it.
He taught you to dance the music, not just the count.
And from the very first class, he saw something different in these two boys.
(02:41):
One day, Lattang was teaching a packed class when he noticed something strange.
The other kids had stopped.
They weren't dancing.
They weren't asking questions.
They were just staring all of them at the two brothers still dancing in the middle of
the room.
That's when Lattang knew.
These two had charisma.
(03:03):
He asked to teach them privately, just the two of them.
He even told their mother, when they dance, they look at each other like they're actually
happy to be doing it together.
That's what audiences feel.
That is what makes them different.
So Lattang began choreographing custom routines for them, inspired by the Nicholas
brothers.
(03:23):
They didn't have the acrobatics, but they had something else.
Slick music, herity, airtight rhythm, and a playful chemistry you couldn't fake.
By ages 5 and 7, they were ready.
Lattang brought them to amateur night at the Apollo.
Dina Washington was there that night.
She took one look and said, "They're too cute.
(03:43):
If they compete, they'll win just because of that."
So she didn't let them enter the contest.
But she did let them perform.
She was a special treat for the audience.
And once they started dancing, the crowd lit up.
They weren't just cute.
They could really tap dance.
Dina was impressed and told the theater to bring them back the following week, this time
(04:07):
to perform with Ruth Brown.
That's how it started.
Soon the Apollo became their second home.
They rehearsed in the basement of the theater on the exact same kind of wood floor as the
stage above.
For tap dancers, that mattered.
It wasn't just smooth, it sang.
The sound was clean, full alive, its own sound.
(04:30):
Tap dancers from that era are on record saying that no tap floor ever sounded better.
These brothers got to watch and learn from the best.
Chuck Green, baby Lawrence, honey coals, bunny brigs, Teddy Hale.
These weren't abstract legends.
They were real.
And right there, teaching, encouraging, and always watching.
(04:51):
They'd hand over a step to the young boys and tell them to make it theirs.
They didn't want copies.
They wanted soul.
They wanted their voices.
And these two brothers, they had one.
Together.
The younger brother had a lightning fast pickup.
He could watch a combination once and do it.
He was more athletic and modeled himself after Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers.
(05:16):
The older brother took his time to learn it, but remembered everything.
He was more graceful and studied the arms and smoothness of Feyard Nicholas.
So they taught each other over and over every day.
That was their system.
That was their rhythm.
That was their bond.
And from that bond, a fire was lit.
(05:36):
They became known as the Heinz kids and other times the Heinz brothers.
And then in 1954, an opportunity to audition for their first Broadway show, The Girl in Pink
Tite's Quarring Grap, by Agnes Demille.
The production needed just one boy for a small role.
Both brothers auditioned, but Demille told their mother, "We only have room for one.
(06:00):
Mom didn't flinch.
Nope, I can't break them up.
They're a set."
Demille raised an eyebrow.
Don't you know who I am?
Then came a compromise.
Demille said, "I know their teacher, Henry Littang.
If the little one can learn a soft shoe in 20 minutes, I'll take them both."
Well, he did.
And just like that, they were on Broadway at just 7 and 9 years old.
(06:24):
That role opened doors.
Soon, they were performing in variety theaters across the US, working the cat skills touring
Canada, even booking gigs overseas.
At one point, they were so in demand, they enrolled in a professional children school, alongside
kids like Patty Duke, Salminio, and Sandra D just to keep up with the travel.
(06:46):
They weren't just working dancers.
They were child stars.
By 1959, they were performing in London, teenagers now, but already seasoned pros.
But something had shifted.
As the older brother later put it, "Dancing had gone out just as we had gotten into it,"
and his younger brother explained why.
(07:07):
"As African Americans in the 60s started to become more aware of their own beauty and their
own sense of self, there were certain aspects of show business African Americans felt they
had to let go and move forward.
And I could certainly understand that, and tap dancing was one of those things."
Tap didn't feel like the future anymore, so they made a choice to stop.
(07:32):
They asked their mom what she thought.
She said, "If that's what you want to do, do it."
Their father, Maurice Senior, had been working as a salesman when he taught himself to play
drums, eventually performing in clubs and local jazz trios.
But in 1963, when his sons pivoted from tap to singing, they asked him to join them
(07:52):
on stage.
At first, he played behind them, but before long, he stepped into the spotlight.
That's how Heinz, Heinz, and Dad was born.
The act clicked, musical, comedic, polished.
They weren't doing rhythm tap anymore, but they still danced, soft-shoot, jazz, physical
comedy.
The gigs rolled in, nightclubs, resort hotels, military bases, and extended stints in Vegas
(08:19):
and the cat skills.
But their real proving ground?
The Playboy Club.
By the early 60s, there was one in nearly every major city.
It was fast-paced, variety-driven, and full of casting agents.
A kind of modern-day Vodville.
Maurice, the older brother, would later call it the "training ground."
(08:39):
They were doing five shows a night.
It was during one of those nights at the Playboy Club that everything changed.
They had auditioned for the Tonight Show seven or eight times and been rejected every
time.
Not by Johnny Carson, of course, but by his bookers and producers until this one night, when
(09:00):
Carson was there at the Playboy Club and he saw them live.
He booked them personally.
And when they finally hit the Tonight Show, it changed everything.
Now it wasn't their first time on TV.
They had already appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, which brought them a few months' worth
of bookings.
(09:21):
But Carson made them a national staple.
They became regulars.
For nearly five years, they were on the Tonight Show almost every other week until Carson
moved his show to the West Coast.
From Carson, the act truly leveled up.
They opened for Ella Fitzgerald on the Vegas strip.
(09:42):
They met one of their idols, Sammy Davis Jr., and worked the same circuit as the Rat Pack.
They were doing classic standards with full-swing arrangements, smooth vocals, tight movement,
undeniable stage presence.
They weren't just working, they were thriving.
But after almost twenty years of that grind, the younger brother felt something slipping,
(10:04):
and at twenty-nine, he left the act, walked away from the spotlight, the schedule, the scene,
and moved across the country to Venice Beach, California, where he disappeared from the
dance world completely.
He played in a jazz rock band called Severance, lived simply, walked the boardwalk, took time
(10:26):
to figure out who he was without the spotlight.
He loved it.
It was quiet, creative, free.
He stayed for five years.
But after a divorce, he made a decision.
He wanted to be closer to his daughter in New York.
She had spent summers with him, but it wasn't enough.
From this time, his brother had just landed the Pippin tour, and told him to come live
(10:48):
with him, that he would take care of him.
So he did, with nothing but forty dollars, a guitar and a backpack, he moved back to New
York.
But by the time he arrived, Pippin had fallen through.
Still, his brother had already submitted him for an audition, a new show called The Last
Minstrel Show.
(11:08):
He booked it that same day.
It wasn't a hit, the show closed out of town in Philadelphia, but it gave him a paycheck,
a foothold, and a way back in.
Within weeks, he auditioned for a new Broadway musical, UB.
He wasn't cast.
So he called the producer directly and said, "There must be some mistake.
(11:29):
I was great.
You've got to give me another shot."
They let him audition again.
Still, no offer.
But he kept pushing and calling.
The choreographer happened to be Henry Littane.
Yeah, the same one who trained him and his brother when they were kids, and actually his
brother was already cast.
And finally, on the second day of rehearsal, they gave him the job.
(11:53):
He hadn't danced professionally in years.
He was scared, he couldn't do it, but once the music started, he did.
This wasn't the same tap though, from his childhood.
It was Jazier, Lucer, a little rough around the edges.
And even though the choreography was set, he started finding a different rhythm, his own voice.
(12:14):
He didn't want tap to live in the past.
He wanted it to evolve.
UB was the beginning of that evolution, and it earned him his first Tony nomination.
From there, the roles got bigger.
In coming up town, he played Scrooge, his first leading role on Broadway, another Tony nomination.
Then came sophisticated ladies.
(12:36):
A hit review of Duke Ellington's music, where he starred alongside Judith Jamison, another
Tony nomination.
That's for three shows, three years in a row, the critics noticed.
So did the audiences.
That show had cracked something open, gave him room to improvise, push boundaries, steal the
(12:57):
spotlight, and he ran with it.
He actually filmed his first movie role in a supernatural thriller called Wolfen, but it
got held up in post.
So his big screen debut came a little later in Mel Brooks' history of the world, part
1.
From there, the roles kept coming, deal of the century, the Muppets Take Manhattan.
(13:21):
But the breakthrough, that came in 1984.
A new film was in the works, The Cotton Club, directed by Francis
Ford Coppola.
He heard there was a part he might be right for.
His agent said the script wasn't available, but it was sitting right there in the office.
So when no one was looking, he took it, slipped it into the bathroom, and read the whole thing,
(13:45):
and he knew instantly.
Cab Callaway wasn't the part he wanted.
He wanted the lead.
So he slipped back his hair through on a 1940 suit, and showed up, uninvited.
At the home of Robert Evans, the film's producer, Evans told him the part had already been offered
to Richard Pryor.
Didn't matter, he kept calling, kept showing up.
(14:08):
He even admitted he got close to being obnoxious, but it worked.
Evans eventually gave him the role, and The Cotton Club became his film breakout.
It was a dream part, not just for the acting, but the dancing, and not just any dancing.
This one brought him back to his roots.
(14:29):
His brother was in the film too, playing his on-screen partner, just like the old days.
Coppola wanted a tap number between them, a tribute to what they used to be.
So Henry Littang, their childhood teacher, stepped in to choreograph it.
Talk about synergy.
Again, he grabbed them by the hands, just like he had decades earlier, and taught them
(14:52):
the number the night before filming.
Vincent can be of the New York Times wrote about our guy, quote, "He doesn't sneak up on you.
He's so laid back, so self-assured and so graceful, where they're acting as an ambitious hoover
or tap dancing, alone or in tandem with his brother Maurice, that he forces you to sneak
(15:14):
up on him."
The vitality and comic intelligence that have made him a New York favorite in UB and sophisticated
ladies translate easily to the screen.
End quote.
That review wasn't just praise, it captured something deeper.
In those years after UB and sophisticated ladies, his dancing started to shift.
(15:35):
The counts got looser, the phrasing less fixed.
He even coined a term for what he was doing, improv-ography.
Tap that wasn't set, tap that breathed.
He treated his shoes like a jazz kit, stretching rhythms, slicing mid-phrase, shifting direction
on instinct.
What mattered wasn't how it looked, it was how it felt, how it sounded.
(15:58):
Tap historian Sally Summer called it, quote, "a cascade of taps like pebbles tossed
across the floor."
Even his posture changed, he danced low, grounded, like he was squeezing sound from the stage.
This was the early 80s and dancers were watching.
Diane Walker, one of the few black women leading in tap at the time, saw him perform on a
(16:22):
later appearance of the Tonight Show, dancing with no music, just rhythm, presence, and the
quiet announcement that his son had been born.
She said it was the first time she realized tap could be honest.
That was his gift, not just technique, but truth in motion.
That evolution continued with white knights.
(16:44):
A duet project built around two stars, Mikhail Burishnikov, and the man who could match
him in rhythm, power, and presence.
The choreography was by twilight tharp, structured, but not rigid.
There was space to improvise, space to listen and react.
It took weeks for them to sink, learn to share rhythm, tempo, weight, and when they did,
(17:10):
it became one of the rarest things in film.
Tap and ballet, side by side, two dance languages, treated as equals.
For dancers, it was a landmark.
A dance movie that didn't relegate tap to novelty or nostalgia, it put it on par with
the classics.
Then came the movie tap, his dream project.
(17:33):
He played a young ex-con trying to reclaim his legacy, opposite his idol.
Sammy Davis Jr. and the cast, a who's who of tap, Sandman Sims, Bunny Briggs, Harold Nicholas
Steve Condos.
It was the first dance film to merge traditional tap with rock and funk, a signal to a new generation.
(17:55):
Tap didn't have to sound old.
Sammy was passing the torch and he was ready to carry it.
Then back to Broadway.
Jellies last jam.
He played Jelly Roll Morton.
Musical genius, flawed man, unreliable narrator.
It was his greatest stage role.
He sang, he acted, he danced, and this time tap wasn't just spectacle, it was narrative.
(18:21):
And after three prior nominations, he won the Tony for best actor in a musical.
Even at the height of his career, he never stopped giving back.
He taught kids, he ran workshops.
He returned year after year to Anne Reineking's Broadway theater project, taught tap dance
master classes at UCLA, helping the next generation find their rhythm.
(18:45):
He didn't just preserve tap, he passed it on.
And still, the work never stopped.
After Jelly's last jam, he kept working, he kept dancing.
On film, on television, on stage, waiting to exhale, will embrace his own sitcom, Bojangles,
where he stepped into the role of another tap icon and earned an Emmy nomination for his
(19:09):
work.
His presence was quiet, but undeniable.
Not just a star, a standard.
He passed away in 2003, at only 57 years old, after a private battle with cancer.
Years later, the US Postal Service issued a black heritage stamp in his honor.
It wasn't just a tribute, it was a reminder that tap could speak.
(19:33):
That rhythm could evolve, that one dancer could bring it into the future and be remembered
for it.
His name, Gregory Heins, and now you know the rest of the story.
(19:58):
(light music)
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