They told me pour some oil in the burner... but that don't do no good!

12. Carol Haney

click on photo for source. I tried to find a good photo of her by herself but that was too hard to come by.

Favorite dance: "Steam Heat" from Pajama Game.



To be honest, I was about to put the jazzy dance from Kiss Me Kate again but figured you guys have probably seen that enough from me. Besides, the clapping part starting at 3:11 is enough by itself to land Ms. Haney on my list. I mean, it's brilliant. I want to learn how to do that! Something tells me that it's really quite difficult, so I won't attempt it (right now!). This song is so wacky and weird, hardly surprising that it was choreographed by the one and only Bob Fosse. I looked into her page on IMDb, which you find here. I realize you can read that on your own but some tidbits I didn't realize and found particularly interesting were: she was Gene Kelly's protege. She was supposed to dance in the jazz ballet but the part was given to Cyd Charisse instead and Haney helped Charisse learn the choreography. She was finally given the spotlight in the Bob Fosse duet in Kiss Me Kate and when Fosse went to choreograph The Pajama Game on Broadway, he insisted she be given a dancing role. The director was so impressed by her that he fired one actress and basically created the role of Gladys Hotchkiss for her, which she then reprised in the film. Crazy huh? There are some more interesting bits about her on the page, so I highly recommend you check it out.

I've decided to put a poll up for the month of April. There isn't any competition between lady dancers that I know of, so I'll just post the question, what, to you, distinguishes a dancing lady? You can choose between sex appeal, high kicking legs, elegance, tapping skills, or personality. I know those might be kind of weird choices but I'll explain: there is one famous female dancer that I'm not a fan of - I'll reveal her name at the end of the list - and the reason is because, while she can boast of high kicks and tap dance with the best of them, she's not particularly sexy or feminine. So, we'll see what you think. Come to think of it, I'll throw in an additional answer: all 5. (Edit: changed my mind on throwing in an "all 5" answer. Instead, I'm allowing you to pick multiple answers)