September 6, 2025 • 25 mins
Joan McCracken turned a bit part in Oklahoma! into overnight stardom — her pratfall in the chorus made her Broadway’s “girl who falls down,” and it caught Hollywood’s attention, leading to starring roles in movie musicals like MGM’s Good News and Hollywood Canteen.
She worked with game-changing choreographers: George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, and Eugene Loring… helping shape their earliest experiments in American dance.
And she became Bob Fosse’s greatest influence (his words). She pushed him beyond nightclubs and onto the path that redefined Broadway.
But behind the spotlight was a young woman battling a secret life-threatening illness. And yet, she refused to stop performing.
In this episode of The Rest of the Story on the Hey, Dancer! podcast, I trace her journey from a Philadelphia childhood and early ballet/acro training to Broadway fame, Hollywood contracts, and her lasting influence on some of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century.
Her story is bigger than a pratfall. It’s the story of a dance pioneer whose legacy must be remembered.
Check out my Return to Dance docuseries!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Bob Fassi called her the greatest influence of his life, and she helped shape the earliest
(00:08):
works of Balanchine, Demille, Robbins, and Lorin, right as they were defining American dance.
Welcome to the rest of the story, my weekly series on my podcast, Hey Dancer.
My name is Miller Daurey and I'm very excited to have you here.
If you are loving this weekly deep dive mini documentary of sorts into the lives of dance
(00:32):
legends, make sure you're following along, subscribe, hit that notification bell so you
always know when a new episode drops, make sure to like and comment.
All of these things tell the platform to spread the dance love, and as I've mentioned,
I'm a one-man team, so any engagement is just sincerely appreciated.
(00:54):
Okay, let's get into it. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 31, 1917.
New Year's Eve, her father, Franklin, known as Frank, covered golf and boxing for the Philadelphia
Public Ledger. Her mother, Mary, ran the household. A few years later came a younger brother,
(01:17):
Buddy. From the start, she gravitated to movement and the arts. She kept scrapbooks of pictures of
famous dancers and composers. She made the elderly neighbor next door watch her dance routines,
and she welcomed applause, booing, and everything in between.
She attended the William F. Herady School, a public elementary school in West Philadelphia.
(01:42):
For her eighth birthday, her aunt gave her the gift of tap lessons. Her first teacher was Al White,
a popular English-born Philadelphia tap instructor. He gave her a grounding in showmanship and discipline,
but tap was not to her liking. She wanted something else. And in Philadelphia at that time,
(02:03):
that wasn't easy to find. Ballet training was scarce, still in its early stages in America.
She finally discovered it at the Phillips Professional School of Dancing.
Ethel Quirk Phillips, a former dancer with the Chicago Grand Opera Company and Broadway musicals
before an injury ended her performing career, taught Toe, Ballet, character, and ballroom.
(02:27):
Edward Phillips handled acrobatics, limbering, adagio, and tap.
The school also brought in guest instructors, including Mikhail Mordkin, a former Bullshoy star
who had toured internationally and helped bring Russian Ballet to the United States.
This little girl was so proud of studying with him that she pasted his photograph
(02:50):
into her scrapbook and wrote underneath, "I took lessons from him."
Through the school's company, the Phillips dancers she began to perform publicly.
She was partnered by William Dollar, who would later become one of the first great American
male ballet dancers. Acrobatics was part of her training from the beginning.
(03:11):
At 11, she received a scholarship to Billy Herman's Genesium for her acrobatic work.
She performed in amateur theatricals, benefits, and recitals,
and the papers seemed to cover her constantly.
Identified as an acrobatic dancer in a National Players' Play-Lit,
she was photographed lying on her chest, arching her back with such impressive flexibility
(03:36):
that her toes touched the floor beside her face.
With her father's press contacts, her picture was everywhere.
She then enrolled at the Little Field Ballet School,
founded by sisters Catherine and Dorothy Littlefield,
pioneers in bringing serious ballet training to Philadelphia.
At first, the experience discouraged her.
(03:58):
The other students were already performing FWET days,
but her mom had paid $35 in tuition and couldn't get a refund, so she went back.
Before long, she was hooked.
She became so devoted to her ballet studies that she skipped out of classes
at West Philadelphia High.
(04:18):
In November 1933, George Ballenshin, newly arrived from Russia
and already making his mark as a choreographer,
visited the Little Field Studio, while scouting students for his brand new
School of American Ballet in New York.
She auditioned, and on December 23rd,
was invited as a scholarship student in the inaugural group.
(04:42):
Her mom wrote the principle at West Philadelphia High to explain
that her daughter would be 16 on December 31,
and could legally stop attending school to study with Ballenshin.
If the experiment failed, she promised her daughter would return and finish,
so in January 1934, she left Philadelphia behind and boarded a train for New York.
(05:07):
At the School of American Ballet, she trained directly under George Ballenshin.
Four afternoons a week she was in his rehearsal classes,
working through the quick footwork and precise lines he demanded.
Small dancers often thrived on speed and she had it,
but Ballenshin's vision went beyond that.
(05:30):
He wanted long, thin limbs to carve shapes in space,
and her short muscular frame didn't fit the look.
One of her classmates, Annabelle Lyon, remembered her as, quote,
"pixiest" with his special quality for theater end quote,
but Ballenshin's choreography was abstract.
What he was building she wasn't part of, when he left her out of his troops' performances,
(05:54):
the message was clear.
Her body, not her talent, had shut her out.
In April of 1935, she returned to Philadelphia.
She didn't go back to high school, instead,
she joined Catherine Littlefield's brand new company,
the first attempt to build an American Ballet troop in Philadelphia.
(06:15):
Here she began to grow into herself.
She was cast in leading roles, praised for both her dancing
and her dramatic ability.
Tours, concerts, reviews, she worked steadily.
It was training, exposure, and a pedigree that placed her at the center of America's
budding ballet movement, then came the production that changed everything.
(06:38):
In February 1937, the company staged the Sleeping Beauty.
She danced the fairy of happiness.
Backstage, though, she was anything,
but she kept running off to the bathroom,
joking with friends that she'd pee right through her costume.
A week later came the answer.
She had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
(07:01):
At that time, the disease was a near-death sentence.
Insulin therapy was still new, treatments uncertain.
Doctors told her she shouldn't pursue such a demanding career.
She ignored them.
She kept her condition a secret,
fearing no one would hire her if they knew.
Only her closest friends were aware,
(07:22):
slipping her sugar cubes or chocolate to help when she collapsed from low blood sugar.
There were frightening moments backstage,
sudden fainting, her body crumpling without warning,
but she refused to step away from performing.
Despite the diagnosis, she carried on with the little field company.
By the end of the 1930s, though, the company was struggling financially,
(07:44):
and bigger opportunities were opening up in New York.
She knew it was time to move on.
In 1940, she returned to New York with just 10 cents in her pocket.
After some months passed, desperate to work.
She turned to an old dance friend.
That friend was already on the payroll at Radio City Music Hall
(08:06):
and arranged an audition for her.
She got the job.
Audiences came for the rockets,
the precision kick line that was the hall's calling card.
But Radio City also employed a full ballet corps,
classically trained dancers who appeared in every program
but never received top billing.
(08:26):
She won a spot in their ranks.
The schedule was relentless, the work exhausting.
But at $45 a week, it was steady pay,
enough to survive in New York.
In 1942, she joined Eugene Lorings' newly formed dance players.
Lorings built roles on her.
(08:46):
From the Mexican sweetheart in Billy the Kid,
to the Sly rabbit in Harlequin for president,
parts that showed her blend of lyricism and comic bite.
Lorings would go on to become one of the most prolific choreographers
of Broadway and Hollywood's Golden Age,
and she was there at the start,
shaping his earliest experiments in American ballet.
(09:09):
When auditions opened for a new Broadway musical in 1943,
she asked to be seen.
She knew the choreographer Agnist Demille,
already making her mark with ballets like Radio,
where she used classical training to tell American stories on stage.
And this young dancer wanted the chance to work with her.
(09:29):
But at the audition, she was told that only ensemble parts were available.
She walked away.
She wanted more than that.
She wanted to be recognized as a solo dancer.
Then she reconsidered,
realizing the opportunity to gain experience working on Broadway was potentially too good to pass up.
(09:50):
So she went back, auditioned, and was cast.
The show was called Away We Go, later retitled Oklahoma.
And it would change her life.
Her assignment looked minor on paper,
a few counts in a chorus number, many a new day,
but on stage something happened.
(10:11):
In what might have seemed a simple gag,
she dropped to the floor,
a fall so unexpected, so perfectly timed,
that it brought the house to life.
She didn't just stumble.
She turned the moment into theater,
a fusion of comedy and classical ballet,
that no one could have predicted.
(10:32):
That was the spark.
Critics picked her out by name.
Extraordinary for a dancer with so little stage time,
she quickly became known as the girl who falls down.
And soon the magazines followed.
Her picture ran in feature after feature she was profiled,
written about celebrated in a Broadway season filled with towering performances.
(10:58):
The unlikely star was an ensemble dancer whose pratfall
brought laughter and whose ballet training gave it weight.
But that wasn't her only contribution in the show.
In the dream ballet, she carried Demille's expansive choreography,
showing a dramatic range that matched the comic brilliance of many a new day.
(11:19):
Behind the scenes, though, her reality was very different.
She was under the care of a new doctor,
following a daily regimen of insulin injections and diet restrictions.
But she often ignored the rules, pushing past the limitations the illness imposed.
At times, she collapsed backstage, only to be helped by castmates
(11:40):
before returning to perform.
As her acclaim grew in the press,
she became even more determined to keep her illness hidden,
unwilling to let anything jeopardize her momentum on Broadway.
And almost immediately Hollywood came calling.
A Warner Bros. scout saw her in the show,
and just about a month after opening night,
(12:01):
she was offered a studio option and the promise of screen tests.
For her, it was the chance she had always wanted to move beyond the ensemble
and prove herself as a solo artist.
So even as Oklahoma was becoming a phenomenon,
she made the gamble.
She left the show early,
trading certainty on Broadway for the risk and promise of film.
(12:26):
In 1944, she boarded a train west with her mother and her dog, Brown Finnegan.
By the time she stepped off in Los Angeles on March 1,
the publicity machine had already gone to work.
She was 26, but to the outside world she was now 21,
transformed into a rising starlit overnight.
(12:46):
Over the next week, she underwent screen tests on April 10,
Warner Bros. exercised their option and signed her
to a 26-week contract at $300 a week.
Her first assignment came quickly.
A Warner Bros. film called Hollywood Canteen.
She rehearsed for seven weeks and then spent eight more days
(13:07):
shooting a five-minute sequence titled "Bale in Give."
The camera followed her from outside the canteen,
through the doors and across the floor.
She was the star of the scene.
Cast as a feisty country pumpkin she mugged and played for comedy.
But the choreography also showed her ballet strength.
(13:28):
Critics later said the routine leaned too heavily on cuteness,
but her technique, the clarity of her line and the authority of her movement,
gave the sequence a weight the choreography itself lacked.
But Hollywood wasn't what she hoped.
She hated the stop and start pace of movie production.
She missed the intensity of Broadway,
(13:50):
the sense of ensemble, the camaraderie of stage rehearsals.
So when words spread that a new Broadway musical
was holding auditions in Hollywood, she went.
The show was Blumurgirl.
And nervous, she blurted to a man in the doorway that she couldn't sing,
not realizing he was one of the writers.
Moments later, she walked into the room anyway
(14:13):
and tried out with, "I can't say no" from Oklahoma.
And she won them over.
Now she was still under contract to Warner Bros.
and she had to finish her work on Hollywood canteen before she could leave.
In July 1944, once filming wrapped,
she and her mother boarded another train, East.
(14:33):
She left Hollywood behind,
the cameras, the publicity, the starlit mold,
for the promise of Broadway.
This time she wouldn't be just another dancer in the background.
She was headed back as a featured performer
with a name of her own.
No longer the girl who falls down, she was daisy,
(14:54):
a fully realized character and unforgettable.
The critics singled her out again.
The New York Times praised her entrance
as one of the important features of the production.
She was funny, distinctive, alive in every scene.
Publicity followed fast.
Her face appeared in New York papers
and crowds gathered nightly outside the stage door.
(15:16):
She pushed herself beyond charm,
determined to prove she could carry a role.
And she did.
That season ended with her winning the Donaldson Award
for best supporting actress.
An honor that predated the Tonys,
a recognition that she was no longer a chorus dancer with promise.
She was a Broadway star.
(15:38):
And she didn't stop there.
Almost immediately she stepped into another production,
billion dollar baby.
This time she was at the center of Jerome Robbins' choreography,
given space to show both her comedy and her craft.
In try-out at New Haven,
Robbins decided she needed even more.
(15:59):
After the first performance,
he created a new sequence just for her.
Dreams come true,
and the local critics agreed it was the right call.
On stage she was satirical, physical, funny, and sharp,
fusing ballet technique with an offbeat comic instinct Broadway
hadn't quite seen before.
The New York Times declared she was,
(16:21):
quote, "practically a musical comedy in herself."
End quote.
Fresh off her Broadway success Hollywood came calling again.
This time it wasn't Warner Bros.
She was released from her contract.
It was MGM.
And not just MGM,
but Arthur Fried,
the powerhouse producer behind some of the greatest musicals ever made.
(16:43):
He cast her in Good News,
a collegiate romp based on the 1927 Broadway show.
She left New York in February 1947 and headed west for rehearsals.
The schedule was grueling six days a week,
nine to six endless hours in the studio,
but it led to the role that became her Hollywood showcase,
(17:05):
Babe Do Little.
Her big moment came in the number past that piecepipe.
The scene unfolds in a campus malt shop
with comic setups and playful banter.
Then she launches into a whirlwind routine.
Her body flinging into Charleston steps,
angles and hunches like a Vodville comic,
then pulled tight again by the clarity of ballet.
(17:28):
The energy is electric, infectious.
She's partnered by Ray Mcdonald,
but the camera never leaves her.
It's her number, her spotlight, her triumph.
By 1949, she was ready to test herself outside of dance and musicals.
She had already been welcomed into the inaugural group at the actor studio,
(17:50):
studying alongside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clifft.
That same year, she took a small but pivotal role in Clifford Odets,
the Big Knife,
directed by Least Rosberg, and starring John Garfield.
It was her first straight dramatic park on Broadway.
The next professional step was a Broadway review called Dance Me a Song.
(18:13):
She was one of its featured performers,
and in the cast alongside her was a young specialty dancer.
His name, Bob Fossy.
At the time, Fossy was just 22,
working a nightclub act with his wife and partner Mary N Niles.
They would continue performing together, but by then he had lost all interest in the marriage
(18:35):
and was living apart from her.
Meanwhile, he was captivated by someone new, older, more experienced,
and with a worldliness that extended far beyond the insular circles of dance.
He was enamored with her beauty, odd by her talent,
and struck by her knowledge of art and music.
She urged him to think bigger, to try his hand at choreography.
(18:59):
Later, he would say she persuaded him to knock off for a year and go back to school,
to study not only dancing, but movement, acting, speech, and music.
She opened up almost everything for me, he acknowledged.
The review Dance Me a Song may have flopped,
but it carried a different kind of importance.
(19:20):
It brought the two of them together, starting a partnership that would change both their lives.
In 1951, she returned to the stage as Peter Pan in St. Louis of all her roles she would later call
this one her favorite.
By 1952, she was on television as a series regular in Claudia.
(19:41):
A live weekly sitcom sponsored by General Foods,
first on NBC and later on CBS.
It was one of the earliest sitcoms and she was part of its core cast.
Just as her television series was ending its first and only season,
a new chapter opened for Bob Fossy.
The Broadway stage manager's union was producing a one night benefit called Talent 52,
(20:07):
designed to showcase chorus and understudy talent.
Two dancers from Pal Joey, which Fossy was in at the time,
invited Fossy to join them.
And to choreograph their routine, he took the chance.
And what he created was described as plainly a result of the dancer he was living with and learning from.
(20:28):
In the audience that night was George Abbott, one of the most formidable figures in musical theater.
There at her, urging, also present was a scout from MGM,
who arranged for Fossy to test for the studio.
Soon he was signed to a seven year contract and bound for Hollywood.
Through all of this, she kept pushing him to broaden himself.
(20:52):
She brought him to museums and poetry readings, introduced him to classical music.
She was giving him tools, steering him toward a wider artistic vision.
By the end of 1952, that personal bond became official.
Fossy's marriage to Mary Ann Niles was annulled and on December 30th,
(21:12):
just one day before her 35th birthday,
the two of them went to the municipal building in Manhattan at 340 in the afternoon in a simple
civil ceremony they were married. By early 1954, George Abbott was preparing the pajama game.
She was already performing under his direction in Me and Juliet,
(21:34):
a Roger's and Hammerstein musical.
And Abbott remembered, quote, "She sounded off about Bob every time I went into her dressing room.
To me, he seemed very unassuming and not very impressive at all,
but she built him up to be like the next great white hope."
End quote.
She reminded him of the number at Talent 52,
(21:56):
then took him to Radio City Music Hall to see the duet from NGM's Kiss Me Kate,
the one Fossy performed with Carol Haney, that he also choreographed.
That was enough. Abbott agreed to give him the job.
The pajama game opened on May 13th, 1954. Steam Heat,
(22:16):
danced by Haney, Buzz Miller, and Peter Genero, was a showstopper.
Hal Prince later said she was single-handedly responsible for getting Fossy his first job
as a choreographer on Broadway.
Through it all, her own light flickered.
The diabetes she kept hidden was growing harder to manage.
(22:37):
Fainting spells, collapses, and constant health struggles shadowed her performances.
Yet she kept returning to the stage to television to any outlet where she could dance and act.
She gave everything her body would allow, and often more.
In 1961, her body gave out.
(22:58):
She was just 43 years old.
In 1979, Gwen Verdun said, "Do you know what the only thing Bob can retain is?"
"Sorrow. He can have half a million in the bank all the Tonys, Oscars, and Emmys one human being
can amass in a lifetime, and all he lives with is the fact that she died so young on him.
(23:20):
Of all of Fossy's women, she was the most special to him. She was really the one."
End quote.
And Fossy himself never denied it. "She was the biggest influence in my life," he said.
"She was the one who changed it and gave it direction. She opened up almost everything for me.
(23:42):
Sometimes you need an outside force to kick your ass out the door.
She gave that to me."
In another reflection, he put it more simply, "I was very showbiz.
All I thought about was nightclubs, and she kept saying,
"You're too good to spend your life in nightclubs. She lifted me out of that."
End quote.
Because what she did went beyond influence.
(24:03):
Again and again, she stood at the creation points of American dance, helping to
vitalize the work of choreographers who would go on to transform it.
She was hand-picked by George Ballonshin for the inaugural class at the School of American Ballet.
With Eugene Lawrence dance players in his earliest experiments,
(24:24):
he built roles on her that helped shape the company's identity.
She was instrumental in Agnes Demille's first Broadway works.
And gave Jerome Robbins material he began shaping around her.
And with Bob Fossi, she was more than a partner.
She was the force that redirected his path,
(24:44):
the catalyst behind the career that reshaped Broadway.
Her legacy indoors.
As the dancer who proved Ballet could live inside a musical comedy,
fused with timing, wit, and theatrical bite,
at a time when dancers were background,
she was the first toast of Broadway for turning character and comedy into the center of the dance.
(25:08):
She was the proof that a fall could be art,
that comedy could hold the weight of technique that a dancer could change the story
by the way she moved.
Her name, Joan McCracken.
And now you know the rest of the story.
[MUSIC]
(25:35):
[MUSIC]
Bob Fassi called her the greatest influence of his life, and she helped shape the earliest
(00:08):
works of Balanchine, Demille, Robbins, and Lorin, right as they were defining American dance.
Welcome to the rest of the story, my weekly series on my podcast, Hey Dancer.
My name is Miller Daurey and I'm very excited to have you here.
If you are loving this weekly deep dive mini documentary of sorts into the lives of dance
(00:32):
legends, make sure you're following along, subscribe, hit that notification bell so you
always know when a new episode drops, make sure to like and comment.
All of these things tell the platform to spread the dance love, and as I've mentioned,
I'm a one-man team, so any engagement is just sincerely appreciated.
(00:54):
Okay, let's get into it. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 31, 1917.
New Year's Eve, her father, Franklin, known as Frank, covered golf and boxing for the Philadelphia
Public Ledger. Her mother, Mary, ran the household. A few years later came a younger brother,
(01:17):
Buddy. From the start, she gravitated to movement and the arts. She kept scrapbooks of pictures of
famous dancers and composers. She made the elderly neighbor next door watch her dance routines,
and she welcomed applause, booing, and everything in between.
She attended the William F. Herady School, a public elementary school in West Philadelphia.
(01:42):
For her eighth birthday, her aunt gave her the gift of tap lessons. Her first teacher was Al White,
a popular English-born Philadelphia tap instructor. He gave her a grounding in showmanship and discipline,
but tap was not to her liking. She wanted something else. And in Philadelphia at that time,
(02:03):
that wasn't easy to find. Ballet training was scarce, still in its early stages in America.
She finally discovered it at the Phillips Professional School of Dancing.
Ethel Quirk Phillips, a former dancer with the Chicago Grand Opera Company and Broadway musicals
before an injury ended her performing career, taught Toe, Ballet, character, and ballroom.
(02:27):
Edward Phillips handled acrobatics, limbering, adagio, and tap.
The school also brought in guest instructors, including Mikhail Mordkin, a former Bullshoy star
who had toured internationally and helped bring Russian Ballet to the United States.
This little girl was so proud of studying with him that she pasted his photograph
(02:50):
into her scrapbook and wrote underneath, "I took lessons from him."
Through the school's company, the Phillips dancers she began to perform publicly.
She was partnered by William Dollar, who would later become one of the first great American
male ballet dancers. Acrobatics was part of her training from the beginning.
(03:11):
At 11, she received a scholarship to Billy Herman's Genesium for her acrobatic work.
She performed in amateur theatricals, benefits, and recitals,
and the papers seemed to cover her constantly.
Identified as an acrobatic dancer in a National Players' Play-Lit,
she was photographed lying on her chest, arching her back with such impressive flexibility
(03:36):
that her toes touched the floor beside her face.
With her father's press contacts, her picture was everywhere.
She then enrolled at the Little Field Ballet School,
founded by sisters Catherine and Dorothy Littlefield,
pioneers in bringing serious ballet training to Philadelphia.
At first, the experience discouraged her.
(03:58):
The other students were already performing FWET days,
but her mom had paid $35 in tuition and couldn't get a refund, so she went back.
Before long, she was hooked.
She became so devoted to her ballet studies that she skipped out of classes
at West Philadelphia High.
(04:18):
In November 1933, George Ballenshin, newly arrived from Russia
and already making his mark as a choreographer,
visited the Little Field Studio, while scouting students for his brand new
School of American Ballet in New York.
She auditioned, and on December 23rd,
was invited as a scholarship student in the inaugural group.
(04:42):
Her mom wrote the principle at West Philadelphia High to explain
that her daughter would be 16 on December 31,
and could legally stop attending school to study with Ballenshin.
If the experiment failed, she promised her daughter would return and finish,
so in January 1934, she left Philadelphia behind and boarded a train for New York.
(05:07):
At the School of American Ballet, she trained directly under George Ballenshin.
Four afternoons a week she was in his rehearsal classes,
working through the quick footwork and precise lines he demanded.
Small dancers often thrived on speed and she had it,
but Ballenshin's vision went beyond that.
(05:30):
He wanted long, thin limbs to carve shapes in space,
and her short muscular frame didn't fit the look.
One of her classmates, Annabelle Lyon, remembered her as, quote,
"pixiest" with his special quality for theater end quote,
but Ballenshin's choreography was abstract.
What he was building she wasn't part of, when he left her out of his troops' performances,
(05:54):
the message was clear.
Her body, not her talent, had shut her out.
In April of 1935, she returned to Philadelphia.
She didn't go back to high school, instead,
she joined Catherine Littlefield's brand new company,
the first attempt to build an American Ballet troop in Philadelphia.
(06:15):
Here she began to grow into herself.
She was cast in leading roles, praised for both her dancing
and her dramatic ability.
Tours, concerts, reviews, she worked steadily.
It was training, exposure, and a pedigree that placed her at the center of America's
budding ballet movement, then came the production that changed everything.
(06:38):
In February 1937, the company staged the Sleeping Beauty.
She danced the fairy of happiness.
Backstage, though, she was anything,
but she kept running off to the bathroom,
joking with friends that she'd pee right through her costume.
A week later came the answer.
She had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
(07:01):
At that time, the disease was a near-death sentence.
Insulin therapy was still new, treatments uncertain.
Doctors told her she shouldn't pursue such a demanding career.
She ignored them.
She kept her condition a secret,
fearing no one would hire her if they knew.
Only her closest friends were aware,
(07:22):
slipping her sugar cubes or chocolate to help when she collapsed from low blood sugar.
There were frightening moments backstage,
sudden fainting, her body crumpling without warning,
but she refused to step away from performing.
Despite the diagnosis, she carried on with the little field company.
By the end of the 1930s, though, the company was struggling financially,
(07:44):
and bigger opportunities were opening up in New York.
She knew it was time to move on.
In 1940, she returned to New York with just 10 cents in her pocket.
After some months passed, desperate to work.
She turned to an old dance friend.
That friend was already on the payroll at Radio City Music Hall
(08:06):
and arranged an audition for her.
She got the job.
Audiences came for the rockets,
the precision kick line that was the hall's calling card.
But Radio City also employed a full ballet corps,
classically trained dancers who appeared in every program
but never received top billing.
(08:26):
She won a spot in their ranks.
The schedule was relentless, the work exhausting.
But at $45 a week, it was steady pay,
enough to survive in New York.
In 1942, she joined Eugene Lorings' newly formed dance players.
Lorings built roles on her.
(08:46):
From the Mexican sweetheart in Billy the Kid,
to the Sly rabbit in Harlequin for president,
parts that showed her blend of lyricism and comic bite.
Lorings would go on to become one of the most prolific choreographers
of Broadway and Hollywood's Golden Age,
and she was there at the start,
shaping his earliest experiments in American ballet.
(09:09):
When auditions opened for a new Broadway musical in 1943,
she asked to be seen.
She knew the choreographer Agnist Demille,
already making her mark with ballets like Radio,
where she used classical training to tell American stories on stage.
And this young dancer wanted the chance to work with her.
(09:29):
But at the audition, she was told that only ensemble parts were available.
She walked away.
She wanted more than that.
She wanted to be recognized as a solo dancer.
Then she reconsidered,
realizing the opportunity to gain experience working on Broadway was potentially too good to pass up.
(09:50):
So she went back, auditioned, and was cast.
The show was called Away We Go, later retitled Oklahoma.
And it would change her life.
Her assignment looked minor on paper,
a few counts in a chorus number, many a new day,
but on stage something happened.
(10:11):
In what might have seemed a simple gag,
she dropped to the floor,
a fall so unexpected, so perfectly timed,
that it brought the house to life.
She didn't just stumble.
She turned the moment into theater,
a fusion of comedy and classical ballet,
that no one could have predicted.
(10:32):
That was the spark.
Critics picked her out by name.
Extraordinary for a dancer with so little stage time,
she quickly became known as the girl who falls down.
And soon the magazines followed.
Her picture ran in feature after feature she was profiled,
written about celebrated in a Broadway season filled with towering performances.
(10:58):
The unlikely star was an ensemble dancer whose pratfall
brought laughter and whose ballet training gave it weight.
But that wasn't her only contribution in the show.
In the dream ballet, she carried Demille's expansive choreography,
showing a dramatic range that matched the comic brilliance of many a new day.
(11:19):
Behind the scenes, though, her reality was very different.
She was under the care of a new doctor,
following a daily regimen of insulin injections and diet restrictions.
But she often ignored the rules, pushing past the limitations the illness imposed.
At times, she collapsed backstage, only to be helped by castmates
(11:40):
before returning to perform.
As her acclaim grew in the press,
she became even more determined to keep her illness hidden,
unwilling to let anything jeopardize her momentum on Broadway.
And almost immediately Hollywood came calling.
A Warner Bros. scout saw her in the show,
and just about a month after opening night,
(12:01):
she was offered a studio option and the promise of screen tests.
For her, it was the chance she had always wanted to move beyond the ensemble
and prove herself as a solo artist.
So even as Oklahoma was becoming a phenomenon,
she made the gamble.
She left the show early,
trading certainty on Broadway for the risk and promise of film.
(12:26):
In 1944, she boarded a train west with her mother and her dog, Brown Finnegan.
By the time she stepped off in Los Angeles on March 1,
the publicity machine had already gone to work.
She was 26, but to the outside world she was now 21,
transformed into a rising starlit overnight.
(12:46):
Over the next week, she underwent screen tests on April 10,
Warner Bros. exercised their option and signed her
to a 26-week contract at $300 a week.
Her first assignment came quickly.
A Warner Bros. film called Hollywood Canteen.
She rehearsed for seven weeks and then spent eight more days
(13:07):
shooting a five-minute sequence titled "Bale in Give."
The camera followed her from outside the canteen,
through the doors and across the floor.
She was the star of the scene.
Cast as a feisty country pumpkin she mugged and played for comedy.
But the choreography also showed her ballet strength.
(13:28):
Critics later said the routine leaned too heavily on cuteness,
but her technique, the clarity of her line and the authority of her movement,
gave the sequence a weight the choreography itself lacked.
But Hollywood wasn't what she hoped.
She hated the stop and start pace of movie production.
She missed the intensity of Broadway,
(13:50):
the sense of ensemble, the camaraderie of stage rehearsals.
So when words spread that a new Broadway musical
was holding auditions in Hollywood, she went.
The show was Blumurgirl.
And nervous, she blurted to a man in the doorway that she couldn't sing,
not realizing he was one of the writers.
Moments later, she walked into the room anyway
(14:13):
and tried out with, "I can't say no" from Oklahoma.
And she won them over.
Now she was still under contract to Warner Bros.
and she had to finish her work on Hollywood canteen before she could leave.
In July 1944, once filming wrapped,
she and her mother boarded another train, East.
(14:33):
She left Hollywood behind,
the cameras, the publicity, the starlit mold,
for the promise of Broadway.
This time she wouldn't be just another dancer in the background.
She was headed back as a featured performer
with a name of her own.
No longer the girl who falls down, she was daisy,
(14:54):
a fully realized character and unforgettable.
The critics singled her out again.
The New York Times praised her entrance
as one of the important features of the production.
She was funny, distinctive, alive in every scene.
Publicity followed fast.
Her face appeared in New York papers
and crowds gathered nightly outside the stage door.
(15:16):
She pushed herself beyond charm,
determined to prove she could carry a role.
And she did.
That season ended with her winning the Donaldson Award
for best supporting actress.
An honor that predated the Tonys,
a recognition that she was no longer a chorus dancer with promise.
She was a Broadway star.
(15:38):
And she didn't stop there.
Almost immediately she stepped into another production,
billion dollar baby.
This time she was at the center of Jerome Robbins' choreography,
given space to show both her comedy and her craft.
In try-out at New Haven,
Robbins decided she needed even more.
(15:59):
After the first performance,
he created a new sequence just for her.
Dreams come true,
and the local critics agreed it was the right call.
On stage she was satirical, physical, funny, and sharp,
fusing ballet technique with an offbeat comic instinct Broadway
hadn't quite seen before.
The New York Times declared she was,
(16:21):
quote, "practically a musical comedy in herself."
End quote.
Fresh off her Broadway success Hollywood came calling again.
This time it wasn't Warner Bros.
She was released from her contract.
It was MGM.
And not just MGM,
but Arthur Fried,
the powerhouse producer behind some of the greatest musicals ever made.
(16:43):
He cast her in Good News,
a collegiate romp based on the 1927 Broadway show.
She left New York in February 1947 and headed west for rehearsals.
The schedule was grueling six days a week,
nine to six endless hours in the studio,
but it led to the role that became her Hollywood showcase,
(17:05):
Babe Do Little.
Her big moment came in the number past that piecepipe.
The scene unfolds in a campus malt shop
with comic setups and playful banter.
Then she launches into a whirlwind routine.
Her body flinging into Charleston steps,
angles and hunches like a Vodville comic,
then pulled tight again by the clarity of ballet.
(17:28):
The energy is electric, infectious.
She's partnered by Ray Mcdonald,
but the camera never leaves her.
It's her number, her spotlight, her triumph.
By 1949, she was ready to test herself outside of dance and musicals.
She had already been welcomed into the inaugural group at the actor studio,
(17:50):
studying alongside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clifft.
That same year, she took a small but pivotal role in Clifford Odets,
the Big Knife,
directed by Least Rosberg, and starring John Garfield.
It was her first straight dramatic park on Broadway.
The next professional step was a Broadway review called Dance Me a Song.
(18:13):
She was one of its featured performers,
and in the cast alongside her was a young specialty dancer.
His name, Bob Fossy.
At the time, Fossy was just 22,
working a nightclub act with his wife and partner Mary N Niles.
They would continue performing together, but by then he had lost all interest in the marriage
(18:35):
and was living apart from her.
Meanwhile, he was captivated by someone new, older, more experienced,
and with a worldliness that extended far beyond the insular circles of dance.
He was enamored with her beauty, odd by her talent,
and struck by her knowledge of art and music.
She urged him to think bigger, to try his hand at choreography.
(18:59):
Later, he would say she persuaded him to knock off for a year and go back to school,
to study not only dancing, but movement, acting, speech, and music.
She opened up almost everything for me, he acknowledged.
The review Dance Me a Song may have flopped,
but it carried a different kind of importance.
(19:20):
It brought the two of them together, starting a partnership that would change both their lives.
In 1951, she returned to the stage as Peter Pan in St. Louis of all her roles she would later call
this one her favorite.
By 1952, she was on television as a series regular in Claudia.
(19:41):
A live weekly sitcom sponsored by General Foods,
first on NBC and later on CBS.
It was one of the earliest sitcoms and she was part of its core cast.
Just as her television series was ending its first and only season,
a new chapter opened for Bob Fossy.
The Broadway stage manager's union was producing a one night benefit called Talent 52,
(20:07):
designed to showcase chorus and understudy talent.
Two dancers from Pal Joey, which Fossy was in at the time,
invited Fossy to join them.
And to choreograph their routine, he took the chance.
And what he created was described as plainly a result of the dancer he was living with and learning from.
(20:28):
In the audience that night was George Abbott, one of the most formidable figures in musical theater.
There at her, urging, also present was a scout from MGM,
who arranged for Fossy to test for the studio.
Soon he was signed to a seven year contract and bound for Hollywood.
Through all of this, she kept pushing him to broaden himself.
(20:52):
She brought him to museums and poetry readings, introduced him to classical music.
She was giving him tools, steering him toward a wider artistic vision.
By the end of 1952, that personal bond became official.
Fossy's marriage to Mary Ann Niles was annulled and on December 30th,
(21:12):
just one day before her 35th birthday,
the two of them went to the municipal building in Manhattan at 340 in the afternoon in a simple
civil ceremony they were married. By early 1954, George Abbott was preparing the pajama game.
She was already performing under his direction in Me and Juliet,
(21:34):
a Roger's and Hammerstein musical.
And Abbott remembered, quote, "She sounded off about Bob every time I went into her dressing room.
To me, he seemed very unassuming and not very impressive at all,
but she built him up to be like the next great white hope."
End quote.
She reminded him of the number at Talent 52,
(21:56):
then took him to Radio City Music Hall to see the duet from NGM's Kiss Me Kate,
the one Fossy performed with Carol Haney, that he also choreographed.
That was enough. Abbott agreed to give him the job.
The pajama game opened on May 13th, 1954. Steam Heat,
(22:16):
danced by Haney, Buzz Miller, and Peter Genero, was a showstopper.
Hal Prince later said she was single-handedly responsible for getting Fossy his first job
as a choreographer on Broadway.
Through it all, her own light flickered.
The diabetes she kept hidden was growing harder to manage.
(22:37):
Fainting spells, collapses, and constant health struggles shadowed her performances.
Yet she kept returning to the stage to television to any outlet where she could dance and act.
She gave everything her body would allow, and often more.
In 1961, her body gave out.
(22:58):
She was just 43 years old.
In 1979, Gwen Verdun said, "Do you know what the only thing Bob can retain is?"
"Sorrow. He can have half a million in the bank all the Tonys, Oscars, and Emmys one human being
can amass in a lifetime, and all he lives with is the fact that she died so young on him.
(23:20):
Of all of Fossy's women, she was the most special to him. She was really the one."
End quote.
And Fossy himself never denied it. "She was the biggest influence in my life," he said.
"She was the one who changed it and gave it direction. She opened up almost everything for me.
(23:42):
Sometimes you need an outside force to kick your ass out the door.
She gave that to me."
In another reflection, he put it more simply, "I was very showbiz.
All I thought about was nightclubs, and she kept saying,
"You're too good to spend your life in nightclubs. She lifted me out of that."
End quote.
Because what she did went beyond influence.
(24:03):
Again and again, she stood at the creation points of American dance, helping to
vitalize the work of choreographers who would go on to transform it.
She was hand-picked by George Ballonshin for the inaugural class at the School of American Ballet.
With Eugene Lawrence dance players in his earliest experiments,
(24:24):
he built roles on her that helped shape the company's identity.
She was instrumental in Agnes Demille's first Broadway works.
And gave Jerome Robbins material he began shaping around her.
And with Bob Fossi, she was more than a partner.
She was the force that redirected his path,
(24:44):
the catalyst behind the career that reshaped Broadway.
Her legacy indoors.
As the dancer who proved Ballet could live inside a musical comedy,
fused with timing, wit, and theatrical bite,
at a time when dancers were background,
she was the first toast of Broadway for turning character and comedy into the center of the dance.
(25:08):
She was the proof that a fall could be art,
that comedy could hold the weight of technique that a dancer could change the story
by the way she moved.
Her name, Joan McCracken.
And now you know the rest of the story.
[MUSIC]
(25:35):
[MUSIC]
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