If anybody tells you that dancing is "sissy stuff" and calls you a faggot because you are a dancer, you should stare them down and tell them that at least your legs are going to earn you big time!
How do I know? I started taking dance lessons right after I started modeling and acting. A nice trio, if I do say so myself. But, compared to modeling and acting, dancing is the hardest of the three because it requires absolute and total dedication to maintaining not only your body in general...but your legs as well. That means you have to watch what you eat and how much you work out in order to keep your body at its peak.
Take a good look at the picture above. Believe it or not, that was my midsection and thighs when I was just 17 and in my third year of dance lessons. Not bad, huh? Well, you don't get a body like that by being a couch potato and chomping down potato chips, candy and soda!
No, sir-ee!
The human body is a temple...your temple. Your heart is Kathmandu...and your brain is the High Lama of it all. When you have a career worth millions, it tells you what to eat or drink and what not to. It also tells you to get your daily amount of exercise...whether you want to or not. And your muscles tell your brain when enough is enough. Too much...and, like a jerry-built house, it'll all collapse. Don't overdo it! As the oldtimers say..."too much of a good thing is bad". And, they're right. Too little exercise can make you as weak as a kitten...but too much, and you're looking at long-term convalescing.
I should know...because it happened to me. I had wanted to impress a guest to the dance class. I pulled out all the stops and rehearsed twice as long as I should have...and ended up spraining my thighs and calves and pulling my hamstrings. How bad was it? Bad enough to either require full-leg surgery or at least six weeks on the sidelines. Being a model, my entire body needs to be unblemished...and no agent is going to take a model with scars going from his butt down to his ankles. So I chose sitting in a wheelchair for six whole weeks...with only a minimal amount of walking around (in and out of bed, to the john, in and out of the car, etc.).
Did I miss dancing? Isn't that a silly question? Of course I did!!! Being confined to a wheelchair and sitting out on the sidelines caused me to miss performing with some famous dancers who had come to lecture on the dance. Dancers like Claire Motte and Zizi Jeanmaire from France, Niels Kehlet from Denmark and Alicia Markova from England. Being retired from active dancing, they now make the rounds of dancing schools and lecture on the techniques of the art. But, being in a wheelchair and unable to participate didn't keep me from hearing what they all had to say and watching what they had to display. Let me tell you this...they were magnificent! I mean, all of these people were in excess of 50 plus years...and yet, they were willing to demonstrate for us and teach us how to become the best we could be in the art of dance.
Now, one thing that my teachers had always told me was that overdoing exercises could make me end up looking more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than a performer in stage musicals. After my six weeks of recuperating were finished, actor-dancer-screenwriter-director Gene Nelson came to visit the school and give a lecture. Unable to perform a demonstration since an accident which fractured his pelvis, all Mr. Nelson was able to do was describe to us the way a proper stage dancer should look.
"The one thing you don't want is what are called dancer thunder thighs", he told us. "Thighs that are trim but firm is what you should target for. Let the weightlifters and bodybuilders have the thighs that scrape against one another so much that they wear out the crotches of their pants. You want that slim, trim, firm look that could still enable you to leap gracefully in the air like a gazelle".
Mr. Nelson went on to tell the class that dancing was 50% in the legs.
"The other 50% is up here", he went on, tapping his right temple. He went on about his dancing and film experience and told us about some of the wild dances he performed in the movie "Oklahoma", including where his character "Will" demonstrated an Oklahoma Hello, swept his girlfriend off her feet and left her breathless.
"Dancing is harder than it looks", he continued, "but necessary if you wish to perform in a successful musical. Every musical today has at least one dance number...Grease, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera. Now, the main stars may not be the ones performing the dances...but still they are there. And it's the dances that can either make or break the musical".
After his lecture, we all got the chance to perform small dance numbers for his approval. My dance partner and I got to dance a lambada.
"Very good", he said. "I wish I was able to do that with Gloria Grahame (his girlfriend in "Oklahoma")...but, in 1912, we probably would have been tarred and feathered!"
We started laughing...because we realized he wasn't talking about doing the lambada in 1955 (when "Oklahoma" was filmed), but in 1912 when Oklahoma became a state. And doing a dance that was not only exploitative but considered vulgar by church standards would have been punishable by being tarred and feathered.
Boy, it certainly felt good to get those dancing shoes back on again after so long! I was beginning to feel like a goldbrick, sitting around in a wheelchair, unable to do anything but watch and listen...two things a dancer definitely doesn't want to do.
And, the break just couldn't have come at a better time. Two members of the New York City Ballet came to our class, looking for several young dancers for a film which they were planning to do. The film..."Sleeping Beauty". The members were looking for young dancers to perform parts in the divertissement. This was something that I had been preparing myself for for a long time...even when I was lounging around in the wheelchair. Believe me, I was not idle! I was picturing this ballet in my mind, choreographing every step. And when the time came for my partner and I to audition, we chose the Rose Adagio. My partner and I made absolutely certain that nothing would happen to sabotage our chances, which were as good as anybody else's. When everyone had finished performing for the theatre members, we were told that they were going to check over all the auditions and would let the class know in two weeks.
God, those two weeks were torturous for all of us! I mean, we were sitting on pins and needles, biting our fingernails, wondering who was going to be picked. My partner and I looked at each other and wondered if one or both of us were either going to be chosen...or overlooked. And when the day came for the results to be posted by the New York City Ballet, my partner and I were in seventh heaven.
We were chosen to perform the roles of the Bluebirds!!!
Rehearsals started the day after the junior year finished in May, 1988. The producers wanted to get the ballet filmed as quickly as possible so as to have it released by Christmas. And let me tell you this...those rehearsals were definitely brutal. The dance master had everybody on the stage from dawn to dusk, with three breaks during the day...once at 9 a.m., again at 1 p.m. (for lunch) and the last once at 4 p.m. Some of the students who were chosen felt that this man was being an ogre or a slavedriver. Not me. I knew that he was on a time clock. He had a ballet to get filmed...and he wanted it to be perfect. And we wanted nothing less. When he felt that the choreography and the dancing were both perfect, he ordered the filming to proceed. And when it was all completed, we were able to view it. It was flawless...and looked as if all the dancers were professionals, and not some kids from a dance school.
Christmas 1988 came and went...and so had "Sleeping Beauty", with a very small review printed in the newspapers. But, our teachers saw the papers and read bits and pieces from each one. Almost all of them cheered the performances of all the dancers...including the students who were chosen. My partner and I hugged and kissed, congratulating each other on our "success".
All through our senior year in the dance class, we went on dancing and daydreaming about what we were going to do when the class ended the following May. Would we continue dancing or not? All I knew was that I had always dreamed of working in the theatre...and I wasn't about to stop when the school year ended, either at the dance school or the boys' school.
By August 1989, I had made the move back to Florida after being accepted at the top of my class by the University of Central Florida. Although my major was going to be drama, I was also going to continue with my love for sports and photography. And, with the exception of the four years of theatrical inactivity whil attending the boys' school, I have been involved in the theatre constantly since 1989...when I first stepped onto the stage of the Orlando Regional Theatre in my first adult role---that of disturbed student Tom Lee in Robert Anderson's 1953 drama "Tea and Sympathy".
To date, I have appeared onstage in a total of 37 plays of all kinds...comedies, dramas and musicals. I especially love performing in musicals...mainly because it means I can continue to put my experiences of the four years at the dance school to good use. And today, I still maintain an active schedule with dance classes, going from my home in Malibu to Hollywood twice a week, to keep myself in tip-top condition and ready for any role that comes my way.
And how long with I continue to do this? Hopefully, until the day I die!
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