— from an interview from a recent issue of Dance Notes.
 
The Many Facets Of Pete Taylor

Pete Taylor is a well-known judge and coach, but not many know of his eclectic background. He's acted in movies, danced on TV and Broadway, has lived all over the United States and so much more. With an abundance of knowledge about dancing and the dance business, Pete is always entertaining. The problem is pinning him down! Along with his hectic coaching and judging schedule Pete is the organizer of The American Star Ball and The New Jersey State Open competitions, owns a studio in Delaware and is a partner in a dance shoe business. If you are ever fortunate enough to catch him when he has a few minutes to spare, Pete will always have something interesting to say, give you good advice and will be more than happy to tell you exactly what he thinks!

Tell us about your first experience as a performer?

I used to sing. Don't ask me why! This guy heard me in school. He met with my mother and the principal because he wanted to bring me to Hollywood. I also skated and was the silver medalist in the New York State Skating Championships.

How old were you when you went to Hollywood?

Eight years old.

Did you go?

Yes. I didn't want to go, but I went and I did a movie, which was The Seven Little Foys with Bob Hope and Millie Valente. She was my mother, he was my father and I was one of the kids.

Were your parents involved in dancing or the theatre?

No. My father was a policeman, a private detective. And my mother was a mother. My sister played the piano. That was basically it. I had a manager, and they set up different things for me to do. I ended up doing The King and I with Yul Brynner. So I was going from Hollywood to Broadway, back and forth, back and forth. I went to school part time.

Did you have a tutor?

We had a tutor in Hollywood. I would eat at the commissary, and there were people that I met there, when I was 15 and 16, like Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Margaret O'Brien. All people like that who were eating at the same place. In Hollywood they had your whole day planned… you went to school, you had your tutor, and then you went to singing class, you went to jazz class, you went to tap class, you did your little thing in the movie. You constantly did this every day. And that's how I learned to dance.

Were you contracted with a studio?

At the time, I was with Universal and MGM.

How many movies did you do?

I would say at least half a dozen or a dozen. The last movie I did was Swing Shift, which was where Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn met. We did it when I was living in Vegas.

How old were you then?

We're not going to discuss that! I was much older! That's in the '80's!

What did you do in that movie?

The movie was about World War II. The soldiers would go to the canteen and dance. We were just part of the background. I was a chorus boy. I did a lot when I lived in Vegas. I worked with Debbie Reynolds, Juliet Prowse, Suzanne Summers, Liberace.

Were they nice?

Oh, yeh. In fact, right now, I'm on the Suzanne Summers diet and I talked to her about it. I got her phone number from a friend of mine in Las Vegas and I called her. She remembered me because I did a lot of her choreography when she was at The Las Vegas Hilton. They had shows there with new artists coming in every six weeks.

How did you get involved in ballroom dancing?

I was dancing at the Palladium in New York City, way back when, and this guy came up to me and said, "Okay, where do you work? Do you work at Arthur Murray, Fred Astaire, Al Butler's Dance Studio?" I'm just looking at him and he said again, "What dance studio?" I said, "June Taylor." And he said, "No, no, no. Ballroom." I said, "I don't know what you mean." So he invited me to come up to his studio and it was a Fred Astaire studio.

Where was the studio?

It was at Radio City, on Sixth Avenue in New York City. My training class teacher was Dagmar Jarvel. Everybody was dressed up in shirts, ties and nice pants, and I had jazz pants on. I didn't know! I was going for a lesson! I looked out the window from the training class into the ballroom and I said to this kid, "What are they doing?" and he said, "They're teaching those people to dance." So then there was a break and they brought this other guy in, who was John Monte, and he taught for another hour. I thought it was awful boring, so I made my excuses and I left. And that was it. A couple of weeks later, I was auditioning for a show in New York. We were eating in a restaurant and this guy comes over to me and says, "Where have you been?" I looked at him and didn't even know who he was. I said, "I'm auditioning for shows." And he said, "The training class teacher thought you were really good. So why don't you come back?" And I said, "Well, where?" And he said, "Upstairs at the studio." The studio I was in was upstairs and I didn't realize it. That night some of us were talking about possibly doing something different, so we went to the studio. They had some interviews, but I didn't understand what that was. Nobody was able to take this lady for a lesson, so they called me out. They said, "You're going to teach this lady how to do the mambo. I said, "Okay." So I proceeded to teach her to do the mambo. At the end of the lesson, this lady came out-her name was Leona Fox-and said, "Well, how did she do?" I said, "Fine." We went into the office and she quoted her two prices. She said, "Which of these two programs do you think this lady should take?" Now, I'm looking at it from a dance point of view… that I took 50 lessons a month, so I said, "Oh, she'll never learn it in 25, she should buy the 50." And she bought it! We went to the desk and they said, "Well, Miss Leone, your teacher will be Mr. Phillipe. He's going to get you started on your dancing." She said, "No, I don't want him, I want the one I have. I want Mr. Taylor." So, not to lose her, I guess, they called me into the office and said, "Listen, here's the deal, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." He gave me a check-I'll never forget it-for $18.75. I was like, "Oh, boy!" I said, "I'll have to let you know tomorrow." But they paid me for that evening. I went back to where I was, auditioning for a show on Broadway, which was called... later on, West Side Story. That's where I met Vernon Brock, and I showed him the check. I was trying to decide whether to sign the contract for West Side Story, which we all thought was crazy. We heard some of the music, Jerome Robbins was the choreographer and he did some wonderful things with it... but it just seemed like there was something wrong with it. They told us it was a story about Romeo and Juliet as Puerto Ricans and Americans, but they didn't say what was really going to happen. I had been in three flops prior to that, so I thought, "Well, I got this check for $18.75, and I got this other contract to sign. We would go to Boston or somewhere and probably the show would close. So I went back to the studio. That's how it started. Everyone thinks it's funny.

So Vernon Brock was there trying out for West Side Story too?

Right. Then I met Vernon again years later when he was at Arthur Murray. But I had really met him the first time through West Side Story.

And he didn't take the part either?

I don't think Vernon did, but I don't know why. I don't really remember; he was in the last call too. That's the point when you've got to sign a contract with them; it's decided what you're going to do and how much you're going to make.

Do you regret not taking it?

Yes, definitely. I had friends that were in the show. When they hit Broadway and it was the big thing, I thought, "Oh, my god." I did try to get into the movie of it. I was very good friends with George Chakiris, and he was in it. At that time the Fred Astaire TV shows were going on. I was told, "You're working for Fred Astaire; you have to do the TV show." So I didn't get to be in the movie either.

What was it like doing a show with Fred Astaire?

The man is a genius and he received a lot of Emmy Awards for the shows. He believed in rehearsing for hours and hours and hours. We did one number and rehearsed it for like four days, just one single number.

So you only did one of his shows?

Yes, just one.

Because of that?

Well, no. I was getting involved in more studio things and traveling for the organization. We used to do a lot of his openings, like at Loew's State theatre, when Daddy Long Legs opened. The Fred Astaire dancers would do the intro at the premieres of everything. So we would dance up and down the steps of the Loew's State theatre. Those were the fun years, doing all that.

What about your competitive career? Who did you dance with and what styles?

Donna Smith, for the longest time. We danced a lot. We did a lot of shows for the Fred Astaire people. We competed outside the organization, like at the California Star Ball, wherever there was an independent competition, we would compete. And we'd compete also at the Fred Astaire competitions. And we did very, very well. But then it got to a point where, because of being the co-national dance director, it was either dance or be more involved with the home office and everything else. I had to make that decision. And then I was getting very involved with organizing USBC, so after the first USBC that was the end of dancing.

You just quit dancing?

Well, no, I didn't quit dancing. Donna got married and had a kid. So I ended up dancing with Linda Joy Douglas. We did shows all over Fred Astaires. We did the grand opening of the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. So it was fun.

Did you do American or International?

We did American when Smooth and Rhythm were combined. The rip away skirts! I think we created them! And we did Standard and also Latin.

You did everything.

I did everything and Theatre Arts. We were Theatre Arts champions.

You've done a lot then.

Well, I think you have to when you're working with a chain. You've got to know it all.

What else did you do before you got involved in ballroom dancing?

Whatever it took to make money so I could pay for lessons-you know what it's like-you just do it. At one point I was a June Taylor dancer. I also was a Bambi Lynne dancer. Bambi Lynne used to be on the Sid Caesar-Imogene Coca show, The Shower Of Stars. I was a Latin Quarter Boy. I was a Copa boy. You just worked. You worked and you worked and you worked because… we didn't make the money that they're making on Broadway today. If we made $100 a week that was like, WOW! And we lived in New York, so it was quite expensive. I was on the Ed Sullivan Show. We thought we were great; it was always hot people, but we were terrible! When they showed the anniversary show, you could see us doing lifts with the girls, everybody together, it was like, boom, boom, boom. It was bad! But we thought we were great at that particular point. But you did whatever you had to do to make money. When I went to Fred's I sort of got settled. Before that I was running all over New York. In the 1960's, while I was working with Fred Astaire's, we were approached to do the choreography for a series of "Beach" movies, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. If you look at the credits for Beach Blanket Bingo, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini and the other movies you'll see that the choreography was by the Fred Astaire dancers. And I was in the first-you ready? I was in the first nude revue in Las Vegas. I was a Minsky dancer; it was the first nude thing at the Dunes Hotel.

You were a nude dancer?

No! The girls, the girls! We were called 'walkers.' You took the girl's hand, and walked her to her spot, you counted to three, and then she stood there. She could not move. When she had to go from one spot to the next, the boy would get her hand and walk her over to the next spot.

She couldn't move?

No, they couldn't. Now, when you go to Vegas, they're dancing!

What did you wear when you were walking them?

We were really covered. You saw my chest, but you never saw my butt. We just had regular pants with slits on the side.

How has being involved in all those stage and TV productions helped you in teaching the ballroom dancers?

I guess basically it taught me the things that I do today. I understand more about dancing than, obviously a lot of other people who have not gone through the stages of dance that I did. The people that I met along the way, like Bob Fosse, Peter Genero, all these people that I was involved with as a kid… I did the Steam Heat number with Shirley MacLaine. She danced it once and became a big star. She left for Hollywood and I still stayed on Broadway. Everybody knows who Shirley MacLaine is. They don't know who Pete Taylor is! But I really think it helped me in my career with Fred's. I was, I think, a strong National Dance Director because I was able to do all facets of dance, which a lot of people after me couldn't do.

So you're very passionate about dancing. Has there ever been a time in your career that you said, "Oh, I've just had enough of this."

Yes.

What happened?

I left Fred Astaire and went into the clothing business for a year. I was very unhappy with my decision not to compete. When I went to the Fred Astaire Nationals and I was watching the professional division I felt something wasn't right. And when the National comp was over, I just said, "That's it. I want out." And I left for a good year, about 14 or 15 months. I went into a clothing line. A friend of mine was designing for a lot of the big movie stars, he was the one that did Carter's Inaugural and he also did the dresses when he was the governor. Then, I don't know, something happened. I went back to dancing to help somebody. Somebody was sick. They called me up and said, "Please, please, please." It was in Columbia, South Carolina. Sal Marino was his name. He had a school and he ran a competition. Something happened to one of the judges so I went to judge it. That's where Linda and I got together. We gave a seminar and I got very involved in it. Linda had me come down to her studio in Clearwater and I helped her with her competition, and the next thing I knew, I was doing it all over again. That's when I started dancing with her.

Did it give you a different perspective, since you were gone for a while?

I think it opened my mind. I really feel that year out I grew a lot. I came back with a different attitude, too. I came in with an attitude that, I wasn't feeling closed in. I became much more creative. And I wanted to do other things. I was lucky the Fred Astaire organization let me do it. Through some of the ideas we made good money.

Why did you get out of Fred Astaire? Was it when you left Vegas?

No, no, no, no. I was already with Fred Astaire for almost 15 years when I left Vegas. I owned a studio in Vegas. I traveled a great deal and sometimes I took "sabbaticals." I moved to Atlanta, and I worked in a studio there for a year. I lived in New Orleans and worked in a Fred Astaire studio in '76.

When did you leave Fred Astaire?

'90-'91, that's the time I went to Delaware.

So you've been independent ever since?

Well, I went back to Fred Astaire for a short period of time when I was training Marilyn Benitez and Peta Siddall. So I moved back to California and they were working for Fred Astaire in Irvine. I wasn't involved in the overall picture; I was involved with the studio. I was running the school and it was Fred Astaire.

Why did you decide to do that?

Because of Peta and Marilyn. I enjoyed working with them and I wanted to have another competitive couple, I don't know. I just did it. It was expensive for Peta and Marilyn to constantly come to Delaware, so I was going out to California and it was very hard. I made the decision just to do it one day. They were getting really close to the top and it was becoming financially hard, it was a lot of costumes for her and you know how expensive costumes are, you've competed. You need a new costume every time you're on the floor. And at that particular time, I met Donna Boyd, and she started helping us with costumes for Marilyn. I became great friends with Donna, and now we're sort of partners in our shoe business.

So how did you finally get to Delaware?

One time when I was at Dagmar Jarvel's competition back in the 80's and I was living in California, one of the boys that worked at the studio in Delaware asked me a question about one of his students. I straightened out the way they were dancing, we just talked about it, and the lady won. So they thought I was the one that did it. But all I did was tell her how to stand up. In fact, it was the lady who owned the studio's daughter, Darlene. And from that point on she was after me to come to Delaware, but I had been booked like crazy.

You were still with Fred Astaire then?

Still with Fred Astaire. And then one time I was booked in New Jersey and something happened at the studio and they cancelled me. I was already in New York and I called them in Delaware and I said, "I have three days open," and they said, "We'll take it!" I said, "But you know it's this weekend," and they said, "Okay, we'll take it anyway!" I went there and they treated me great. It was good to be in that area, my family's from up there. I'd never really been close to my family. I was in California, Florida, somewhere. So she made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I said, "Okay." That's it.

How did you end up owning the studio?

I just bought it from her. She got into some financial problems and I took it over.

Do you enjoy owning a studio and being more settled?

You know, Sam Sodano always laughs at me, but I do. I don't know what it is; I still enjoy the studio aspect of it.

You've done so much. How old are you? 105?

Wouldn't you like to know?! I traveled with Fred Astaire's. I was the Co-National Dance Director and then I became their National Dance Director. When I lived in Vegas I was the Co-National Dance Director. We did a benefit for Frank Sinatra's mother's foundation. Liberace saw it, liked it and wanted us to do it with his show at the Hilton. And we were going to do it, but then we realized that in order to do that kind of show, the whole staff had to be off every night for a month and we couldn't afford that. So I spoke to him about doing something a little bit different and he thought it was a good idea. So he played for the Fred Astaire couple, which at that time was Rick Richards and Barbara Alderetti. Originally when I got the gig with Liberace, I wanted Vernon Brock and Linda Dean to do it but they didn't want to do it. Then when they saw what was going on Vernon said, "I should have done that!" Rick and Barbara went on the road with Liberace for over a year and a half. They went all over the world. Through him we got a lot of contacts, ballroom dancing became part of a lot of people's acts in Vegas. A seamstress, Simone, introduced us to a lot of people in Vegas. She did a lot of costuming and I ended up doing shows for those people. So while I was with Fred's I still had fun doing my own little thing.

Do you miss that?

Uh, no. I think it's better living through the ballroom dancers. You work with them a little bit and you see a better development. It's different. You do something for Suzanne Summers and it's a one shot deal. She does it for that six weeks, if she doesn't take it on the road. And they're more show dancers. A lot of them don't have the background that our dancers in ballroom have today. I enjoy working with Rita and Garry Gekhmann, Mazen Hamza and Irina Sarukhanyan, and Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Goulina, couples like that. It's more fun. That can be much more fun, maybe because I'm older and we sort of live through the people that we know we can help their careers.

So you still have a passion for dancing?

Oh! I love it! I'm still coaching. I've got some of the top couples. A lot of the couples that danced this weekend are my little kids, so I love it.

What does that mean to you when you see Mazen and Irina win, how does that make you feel?

Almost like I won when I was competing. It feels great. To see what we've created with them and some of our other couples, and that the audience and the judges appreciate it and they like what's being done.

Do you get nervous for them?

Oh, definitely, yeh. I don't even get near them, usually hours before they compete, or anybody else that I'm working with.

Is it hard to judge your own couples?

That's the hardest thing to do, especially when you have two or three couples in a division. It just has to be the number on the back at that particular time, and you've got to pick what you feel is the best. I'm not their greatest judge, and they know it sometimes! A lot of my couples will say, if my name is called on their panel they go, "Oh god, here comes a second or third!"

So you're harder on them?

Yeh, I think I am.

Has anyone got upset with the way you marked them?

I think there have been one or two people that I've worked with that were upset with me. But we went over it and I explained what I saw and what I thought. I think I'm a very honest judge. I don't care if it's my couple or somebody else. Let the best man win. I've always been that way.

Do you think the other judges are like that?

I think that we have a lot of very, very credible judges. There are a lot of new kids on the block, and I don't know if they went through the exams of how to judge and what you look for in judging, as a lot of the older ones have done. I know at Fred Astaire's we had a wonderful system of how to become a judge. You went through a training period for a short period of time where you would be judging, but your marks weren't counted. Then they would be started at small competitions.

When you work with your couples now, or judge, do you look for different things than some of the other coaches do?

I think I look for how the couples are dancing to the music. How they feel to that music. I don't want it to look like it's regimented, or they're just doing choreography and not feeling the music. Sometimes there's no feeling in what they're doing. And you see that with professionals, let's be very honest. You see them going through their paces and there's no feeling in what they're doing. Especially in Latin, the girl needs to be a lot more balletic. I do a lot of work with the skaters in Delaware. In our school right now we have four different pair skating couples. I've sent two of the girls to ballet school to learn how to use their hands.

Is that a lot different than ballroom dancing? What do you have to do with them?

We teach them to ballroom dance so when they're dancing together on ice, they're dancing as a pair. They don't look like they're dancing like two separate people. They don't have that feeling. It's just very mechanical to me. I think some of our dancers in skating look a lot better than they did 10 years ago.

So you don't go onto the ice?

No, they come into the studio. I go onto the ice only when their coaches want me to come there to watch. I work a lot with their coaches too.

Can you tell a funny story about someone… that we can print?

I'll give you one on me. Linda Joy and I were doing a show in Atlanta, and at that time we wore those tight catsuits. We were doing a bolero. We did this movement where I put her away from me. And she's looking at me and staring. I'm thinking, "What is she doing?" She just stared at me and stopped dancing. I don't know how long it took, but I finally realized that my zipper had opened all the way to the bottom. The girl that had made it made the tights flesh colored, so all the people were coming and taking pictures of us. It was an embarrassing moment. We just pinned me into it and kept on going! There have been a lot of funny things that have happened. Beverly lost her costume at one of the big competitions... Beverly Donahue... a red costume. Somebody robbed her. And she had nothing to wear!

Were you all good friends then?

Yes. And some of us remain very good friends… Sam Sodano, Beverly Donahue, Glenis Dee, Luanne Pulliam, Bruno Collins, Ronnie Bennett.

Do you think the couples are as good friends now, or are they more competitive?

I think they're a little bit more competitive. I think some of the judges and coaches are a little more competitive. I don't know why. They're all friendly, "Hello, how are you?" But not where they call each other on the phone and talk to each other, and we still do.

What about the dancers?

I think the dancers are a lot friendlier than they were before. Except for the group of us who danced against each other. I think these new groups of dancers have learned to become friendly with each other. It's really good when you see them getting on line and talking to each other and wishing each other luck. But there are always those one or two that are a little standoffish.

Do you think, in all the years that you've been involved in the ballroom world, that it's changed? Has it become more political, less political?

I don't actually think of it as a political thing. I really don't. To me, it's just art, it's beauty, and I don't want to think of it being a political thing. And when I hear it, I usually walk away from the situation.

When someone's talking?

When someone's saying, "Oh, I know blah, blah, blah, because he's working with them," or "They're the USBC champions and they should be the winners." And you can see what happened this year in the American Ballroom division, just between Nick Kosovich and Ben Ermis. Nick won in Florida. I wasn't there, so I really can't say who looked better. But they just competed against each other again and it went flip flop. And Nick came in second. What the couple does that day is what you should be judging. Not what you saw a week ago, or two weeks ago. It's what's happening that day. What's happening that five or ten minutes that those couples are on the floor. That's important.

There are so many competitions. Do you think that's a good thing for the industry, or has it fragmented it?

No, I think it's very good for the industry. I just think that we need to make more people aware of dancing. I was hoping the movie Shall We Dance was going to promote a tremendous business for the entire United States. I don't know. In Delaware we did not get a wonderful response as far as people coming into the studio. But I saw it three different times, and the audience loved it. It was so amazing; the first time I saw it, the audience applauded. And then it happened the second time I saw it and it happened the third time. So they love the art of dance. They think it's beautiful.

Why do you think more people aren't coming in?

Americans do so much. There's football, there's baseball, there's soccer. At my competition we have a tremendous amount of children coming in for our Sunday session, hundreds of children. And it's because of the education in Europe. Their parents have done it, so now they want their children to do it. But in our high schools, in our grammar schools, even in our colleges, which we're trying to push more and more, they don't have programs like they do in Europe. This is what we're lacking. But we have great sports programs. Become a great baseball player, football player… wonderful, but nothing to do with dancing.

What do you think can be done?

It's going to take corporate sponsors. Or it's going to take one of our top couples to do something at a big corporate function. We need corporate sponsors to get us on TV so the public can become much more aware of us. They did it with skating. If they can do it with them, why can't they do it with us? I think ours is a much more graceful and beautiful sport than skating.

You've kept moving around and done so many different things, that takes a lot of courage to keep changing. Why do you think you've been able to do that when some people just stay in the same place all the time?

I don't know. I think it's the people that I associate with. It's the dancers; they do it for me. I love dancing and I go where it is. I'm organizing three competitions a year, and we're probably going to end up doing another one.

With all the competitions there are now, and you're going to get involved in more, why?

I believe in dancing. Last night I called Sam Sodano because I was really annoyed. I put on the TV when I went to my room and ESPN had the cheerleader competition on, I said, "Sam, look at this! They're terrible! We do such beautiful things! Our dancing is so graceful, there's so much that we have to offer in dance!" We're trying to get back on TV. We want to get on ESPN again. I think Sam and I will try our damnedest to do everything we can to see it back on TV again. We try to get corporate sponsors. I believe in dancing. I've done it all my life. ! I've been dancing since I was 8 years old. So I don't know if there's anything else I can do.

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