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At Sammy’s funeral Gregory Hines spoke of the last time he met Sammy. He visited him shortly before his death, and recounts that he said goodbye to Sammy, turned and walked towards the door, just before he opened the door he looked around and Sammy picked up an imaginary ball and threw it towards him. He says that he is honoured that Sammy thought he could carry on from where he left off.
Gregory Hines knew Sammy almost all his life and often was quoted as saying that ‘Sammy Davis Jr was my mentor’. His feelings towards Sammy were expressed at the Sammy Davis Jr 60th Anniversary celebration where he danced with Sammy and then knelt on the floor and kissed Sammy’s tap shoes.
For Hines, tap dancing is as natural as walking. He started, like Sammy, at the age of two with his older brother, Maurice, as his first teacher. Five years later they both began lessons with choreographer Henry Le Tang. Today Hines is hard pressed to explain what he does”Henry never told us the names of the steps. He’d do a step for us and scat a song-’Beep bop bop dee boodly boodly’ and we’d copy him. In the 50’s and 60’s, Hines, Maurice and later their father, as drummer, performed on the road in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the Ed Sullivan show. The group broke up and Hines split from a marriage and headed for Venice, California, where he knocked around for a few years. He came back to New York in 1978 and got a part in a short lived show, which started him dancing again - just as tap was having it’s revival. The same year he and his brother starred in Euble, which Gregory followed up with Comin’ Uptown, Salute to Black Broadway, and Sophisticated Ladies and finally in 1988 when he starred opposite Sammy in Tap. He taps, he sings, he plays drums, he beguiles audiences with a devilish humour. Here’s an entertainer who can do it all.
The following excerpts are from an interview in 1992.
Q: What’s the strangest place you ever tap danced?
A: I like to tap dance in elevators. For some reason, If I can get into an elevator and there’s nobody else with me, there’s a nice little boom and slap sound. I don’t know why it is, but especially the elevator in my building, it’s just terrific. I’ve been able to come up with some really good steps in elevators, and later on I try to remember them.
Q: Walking down the street, do you ever have the urge to break into a little tap number?
A: No, but there have been times when I’ve run into my mentors, like when I bumped into Sandman Sims in the winter, with snow on the ground, as soon as he sees me, he says, ‘Show me something.’ And I say ‘I’m late’ But he’s busy moving snow aside so we can have some traction. It’s times like that that I’m reminded how the form has moved through the ages, how we’ve taught and shared and kept steps moving, just by showing and stealing steps and exchanging steps, in a very informal, spontaneous way.
Q: We’ve been told that white men can’t jump. Could it be said that they can’t tap.
A: Tell that to Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Sure they can. They can jump too. I’ve played ball against white guys who can’t jump.
Q: You worked with Sammy Davis Jr on his last film, Tap. What did you pick up from him?
A: I met Sammy Davis Jr when I was about 9 years old, and it seemed that every time I was in his company, I learned from him. He was extremely generous with his knowledge and experiences. I idolised him. All of us have somebody that we look up to and emulate, but most of us don’t have a chance to actually have a conversation with that person, or be held by him, or have dinner with them, and I had that opportunity. He knew that I idolised him, but he was never in any way aloof with me; he was never intimidating. I always felt that he was a real person, and in many ways, that’s shaped me. Because in this business, where someone is in front of the public alot and blown up and praised, some people begin to feel distanced. They begin to think that that person is not human. Sammy Davis was so sincere and honest with me in a way that shaped me as a person and as an artist.
Q: Can it be true that, like Sammy, you’re blind in one eye?
A: Yeah, my vision in my right eye is really bad. When I was about 9 or 10, we were living in Brooklyn and I was playing in a vacant lot and I fell on a tree stump, and it went in my eye. The vision has really deteriorated over the years.
Q: How does that effect your dancing?
A: I tend to lean a little this way. (Grins). No, it hasn’t. I wear contact lenses when I don’t have my glasses on, and my left eye is good enough, and I can see a little bit peripherally.
Q: With your good eye, you’ve taken up photography. What do you take pictures of?
A: Almost exclusively portraits, black and white. I like to shoot people with a natural expression on their face. And I only take pictures of people i Know, people I feel comfortable with.
Q: You’re so multi-talented:surely there’s one thing you wish you could do but can’t ?
A: When I was a young boy I was a pretty good football player, and I had dreams. I wasn’t good at basketball or baseball, but I wanted to play football. I wanted to follow that dream. Sometimes when I watch football games, I sit and dream to myself, “Gee, If I had played football... I’d be at the game and maybe they’d call me out on the field, and...’Yeah, I love the game. That’s the one thing I think about when I think of an alternative career. |
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| Click here to hear an mp3 of his speech at the funeral |
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