The Shim Sham Shimmy Man, died in his sleep. He was 97.
He was born in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma.
Mr Reed was born in Oklahoma in 1907 to a half-black, half-Choctaw mother who died when he was two, and a white father whom he never saw. At the age of five—some say a bit more—he was sent to foster parents in Kansas City, where his foster father would beat him savagely. After each beating he would run away from home, but not from school, where his guardian would soon collect him. Eventually, having been caught drinking alcohol, he was saved from a stretch in a reformatory by showing the judge the weals on his back. Hugh Cook, his school principal, agreed to take him in and, in Mr Reed's words, thus saved him from a wasted life.
As a teenager, Mr Reed got a summer job selling popcorn at the local theatre, where the audience came to see vaudeville revues featuring the latest craze, a dance called the Charleston. Soon Mr Reed was a stylish exponent—so stylish, indeed, that he took first prize in a Charleston contest at another theatre. It was nearly his undoing. For in those days much of America was racially segregated and Mr Reed was formally considered black. But, light-skinned and blue-eyed, he could pass as white, and this was a contest for whites. Rumbled by two usherettes who knew him, he was pursued from the theatre by the manager shouting, "Catch that nigger!" Only his quick-wittedness in taking up the cry and posing as a pursuer enabled him to escape.
Mr Reed was a good pupil, good enough at least for Mr Cook to wish him to go to Cornell University, his alma mater. On his introductory visit, though, Mr Reed slipped into another dance contest and was immediately asked to join the show. He did. Soon he was touring with Hits and Bits, mimicking tap steps and, by 1925, hanging out in the Hoofer's Club in New York. A couple of years later he joined Willie Bryant, another fair-skinned dancer, to form a team known as "Reed and Bryant—Brains as well as Feet". This, with a bit of help from another partnership, the Whitman Sisters, led to Mr Reed's greatest legacy, the Shim Sham Shimmy.
Readers of The Economist will know that there is some disagreement about the Shim Sham, from which Mr Reed developed the Shim Sham Shimmy. Some say it started as a tap routine in the early 1900s; others credit it to the Brains-as-well-as-Feet team. In any event, the Shimmy, in its simple form, became a one-bar routine made up of four eight-bar choruses each consisting of the double shuffle, crossover, an up-and-back shuffle and another move sometimes described as "falling off a log". In one form or another, the Shimmy soon swept the country. It is to this day considered an essential part of the repertoire of all tap dancers, especially as a finale.
The opportunities for Mr Reed now seemed endless. They were not, for segregation was to persist for another two decades and Mr Reed could not resist dancing in both all-white and all-black shows. Caught in the act—the wrong one—once again, he gave up his dance career in 1934 to become a producer, first with an all-tap show called Rhythm Bound and later, in the 1940s, at the Cotton Club in Harlem and elsewhere with musicians such as Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and singers such as Ethel Waters, Lena Horne and Dinah Washington.
As master of ceremonies at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in the 1950s, Mr Reed met the heavyweight prize-fighter, Joe Louis, with whom he then teamed up to form a comedy act. He also turned his hand to writing and arranging music—for Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, among others.
More surprisingly, he made his mark upon the world of golf—thanks, once again, to the ambiguities of his race. A keen golfer, as well as hoofer, Mr Reed was issued with a player's card by officials of the Professional Golfers' Association in San Diego in 1951 who mistakenly took him for a white. This led to the abolition of the all-Caucasian rule, in force since the American PGA's foundation in 1916, and opened the way for black golfers such as Tiger Woods.
Mr Reed received many honours, including, in 2000, the Living Treasure in American Dance Award. He attributed his long life to "women, golf and show business", and maintained an interest in all three to the end. Indeed, he was still teaching the Shim Sham Shimmy this year. Dream on, Horatio Alger, dream on.
Leonard Reed lived in southern California, and taught tap dancing until his late nineties. As a vocal coach, Leonard was blessed to have a student so talented that she was unopposed during the final weeks that she appeared on Star Search; this was Angela Teek, daughter of another Reed prodigy, Spanky Wilson.
He married Barbara De Costa in 1951. At aged 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep from congestive heart failure, in a West Covina, CA hospital on the night of Monday, April 5, 2004. His survivors include his wife Barbara, a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren.
SOURCE: The Alchetron Encyclopedia, Aug 20, 2018
https://alchetron.com/Leonard-Reed
::: Contributor: genieangel (47288257) •08-2022
He was born in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma.
Mr Reed was born in Oklahoma in 1907 to a half-black, half-Choctaw mother who died when he was two, and a white father whom he never saw. At the age of five—some say a bit more—he was sent to foster parents in Kansas City, where his foster father would beat him savagely. After each beating he would run away from home, but not from school, where his guardian would soon collect him. Eventually, having been caught drinking alcohol, he was saved from a stretch in a reformatory by showing the judge the weals on his back. Hugh Cook, his school principal, agreed to take him in and, in Mr Reed's words, thus saved him from a wasted life.
As a teenager, Mr Reed got a summer job selling popcorn at the local theatre, where the audience came to see vaudeville revues featuring the latest craze, a dance called the Charleston. Soon Mr Reed was a stylish exponent—so stylish, indeed, that he took first prize in a Charleston contest at another theatre. It was nearly his undoing. For in those days much of America was racially segregated and Mr Reed was formally considered black. But, light-skinned and blue-eyed, he could pass as white, and this was a contest for whites. Rumbled by two usherettes who knew him, he was pursued from the theatre by the manager shouting, "Catch that nigger!" Only his quick-wittedness in taking up the cry and posing as a pursuer enabled him to escape.
Mr Reed was a good pupil, good enough at least for Mr Cook to wish him to go to Cornell University, his alma mater. On his introductory visit, though, Mr Reed slipped into another dance contest and was immediately asked to join the show. He did. Soon he was touring with Hits and Bits, mimicking tap steps and, by 1925, hanging out in the Hoofer's Club in New York. A couple of years later he joined Willie Bryant, another fair-skinned dancer, to form a team known as "Reed and Bryant—Brains as well as Feet". This, with a bit of help from another partnership, the Whitman Sisters, led to Mr Reed's greatest legacy, the Shim Sham Shimmy.
Readers of The Economist will know that there is some disagreement about the Shim Sham, from which Mr Reed developed the Shim Sham Shimmy. Some say it started as a tap routine in the early 1900s; others credit it to the Brains-as-well-as-Feet team. In any event, the Shimmy, in its simple form, became a one-bar routine made up of four eight-bar choruses each consisting of the double shuffle, crossover, an up-and-back shuffle and another move sometimes described as "falling off a log". In one form or another, the Shimmy soon swept the country. It is to this day considered an essential part of the repertoire of all tap dancers, especially as a finale.
The opportunities for Mr Reed now seemed endless. They were not, for segregation was to persist for another two decades and Mr Reed could not resist dancing in both all-white and all-black shows. Caught in the act—the wrong one—once again, he gave up his dance career in 1934 to become a producer, first with an all-tap show called Rhythm Bound and later, in the 1940s, at the Cotton Club in Harlem and elsewhere with musicians such as Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and singers such as Ethel Waters, Lena Horne and Dinah Washington.
As master of ceremonies at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in the 1950s, Mr Reed met the heavyweight prize-fighter, Joe Louis, with whom he then teamed up to form a comedy act. He also turned his hand to writing and arranging music—for Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, among others.
More surprisingly, he made his mark upon the world of golf—thanks, once again, to the ambiguities of his race. A keen golfer, as well as hoofer, Mr Reed was issued with a player's card by officials of the Professional Golfers' Association in San Diego in 1951 who mistakenly took him for a white. This led to the abolition of the all-Caucasian rule, in force since the American PGA's foundation in 1916, and opened the way for black golfers such as Tiger Woods.
Mr Reed received many honours, including, in 2000, the Living Treasure in American Dance Award. He attributed his long life to "women, golf and show business", and maintained an interest in all three to the end. Indeed, he was still teaching the Shim Sham Shimmy this year. Dream on, Horatio Alger, dream on.
Leonard Reed lived in southern California, and taught tap dancing until his late nineties. As a vocal coach, Leonard was blessed to have a student so talented that she was unopposed during the final weeks that she appeared on Star Search; this was Angela Teek, daughter of another Reed prodigy, Spanky Wilson.
He married Barbara De Costa in 1951. At aged 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep from congestive heart failure, in a West Covina, CA hospital on the night of Monday, April 5, 2004. His survivors include his wife Barbara, a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren.
SOURCE: The Alchetron Encyclopedia, Aug 20, 2018
https://alchetron.com/Leonard-Reed
::: Contributor: genieangel (47288257) •08-2022
The Shim Sham Shimmy Man, died in his sleep. He was 97.
He was born in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma.
Mr Reed was born in Oklahoma in 1907 to a half-black, half-Choctaw mother who died when he was two, and a white father whom he never saw. At the age of five—some say a bit more—he was sent to foster parents in Kansas City, where his foster father would beat him savagely. After each beating he would run away from home, but not from school, where his guardian would soon collect him. Eventually, having been caught drinking alcohol, he was saved from a stretch in a reformatory by showing the judge the weals on his back. Hugh Cook, his school principal, agreed to take him in and, in Mr Reed's words, thus saved him from a wasted life.
As a teenager, Mr Reed got a summer job selling popcorn at the local theatre, where the audience came to see vaudeville revues featuring the latest craze, a dance called the Charleston. Soon Mr Reed was a stylish exponent—so stylish, indeed, that he took first prize in a Charleston contest at another theatre. It was nearly his undoing. For in those days much of America was racially segregated and Mr Reed was formally considered black. But, light-skinned and blue-eyed, he could pass as white, and this was a contest for whites. Rumbled by two usherettes who knew him, he was pursued from the theatre by the manager shouting, "Catch that nigger!" Only his quick-wittedness in taking up the cry and posing as a pursuer enabled him to escape.
Mr Reed was a good pupil, good enough at least for Mr Cook to wish him to go to Cornell University, his alma mater. On his introductory visit, though, Mr Reed slipped into another dance contest and was immediately asked to join the show. He did. Soon he was touring with Hits and Bits, mimicking tap steps and, by 1925, hanging out in the Hoofer's Club in New York. A couple of years later he joined Willie Bryant, another fair-skinned dancer, to form a team known as "Reed and Bryant—Brains as well as Feet". This, with a bit of help from another partnership, the Whitman Sisters, led to Mr Reed's greatest legacy, the Shim Sham Shimmy.
Readers of The Economist will know that there is some disagreement about the Shim Sham, from which Mr Reed developed the Shim Sham Shimmy. Some say it started as a tap routine in the early 1900s; others credit it to the Brains-as-well-as-Feet team. In any event, the Shimmy, in its simple form, became a one-bar routine made up of four eight-bar choruses each consisting of the double shuffle, crossover, an up-and-back shuffle and another move sometimes described as "falling off a log". In one form or another, the Shimmy soon swept the country. It is to this day considered an essential part of the repertoire of all tap dancers, especially as a finale.
The opportunities for Mr Reed now seemed endless. They were not, for segregation was to persist for another two decades and Mr Reed could not resist dancing in both all-white and all-black shows. Caught in the act—the wrong one—once again, he gave up his dance career in 1934 to become a producer, first with an all-tap show called Rhythm Bound and later, in the 1940s, at the Cotton Club in Harlem and elsewhere with musicians such as Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and singers such as Ethel Waters, Lena Horne and Dinah Washington.
As master of ceremonies at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in the 1950s, Mr Reed met the heavyweight prize-fighter, Joe Louis, with whom he then teamed up to form a comedy act. He also turned his hand to writing and arranging music—for Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, among others.
More surprisingly, he made his mark upon the world of golf—thanks, once again, to the ambiguities of his race. A keen golfer, as well as hoofer, Mr Reed was issued with a player's card by officials of the Professional Golfers' Association in San Diego in 1951 who mistakenly took him for a white. This led to the abolition of the all-Caucasian rule, in force since the American PGA's foundation in 1916, and opened the way for black golfers such as Tiger Woods.
Mr Reed received many honours, including, in 2000, the Living Treasure in American Dance Award. He attributed his long life to "women, golf and show business", and maintained an interest in all three to the end. Indeed, he was still teaching the Shim Sham Shimmy this year. Dream on, Horatio Alger, dream on.
Leonard Reed lived in southern California, and taught tap dancing until his late nineties. As a vocal coach, Leonard was blessed to have a student so talented that she was unopposed during the final weeks that she appeared on Star Search; this was Angela Teek, daughter of another Reed prodigy, Spanky Wilson.
He married Barbara De Costa in 1951. At aged 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep from congestive heart failure, in a West Covina, CA hospital on the night of Monday, April 5, 2004. His survivors include his wife Barbara, a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren.
SOURCE: The Alchetron Encyclopedia, Aug 20, 2018
https://alchetron.com/Leonard-Reed
::: Contributor: genieangel (47288257) •08-2022
He was born in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma.
Mr Reed was born in Oklahoma in 1907 to a half-black, half-Choctaw mother who died when he was two, and a white father whom he never saw. At the age of five—some say a bit more—he was sent to foster parents in Kansas City, where his foster father would beat him savagely. After each beating he would run away from home, but not from school, where his guardian would soon collect him. Eventually, having been caught drinking alcohol, he was saved from a stretch in a reformatory by showing the judge the weals on his back. Hugh Cook, his school principal, agreed to take him in and, in Mr Reed's words, thus saved him from a wasted life.
As a teenager, Mr Reed got a summer job selling popcorn at the local theatre, where the audience came to see vaudeville revues featuring the latest craze, a dance called the Charleston. Soon Mr Reed was a stylish exponent—so stylish, indeed, that he took first prize in a Charleston contest at another theatre. It was nearly his undoing. For in those days much of America was racially segregated and Mr Reed was formally considered black. But, light-skinned and blue-eyed, he could pass as white, and this was a contest for whites. Rumbled by two usherettes who knew him, he was pursued from the theatre by the manager shouting, "Catch that nigger!" Only his quick-wittedness in taking up the cry and posing as a pursuer enabled him to escape.
Mr Reed was a good pupil, good enough at least for Mr Cook to wish him to go to Cornell University, his alma mater. On his introductory visit, though, Mr Reed slipped into another dance contest and was immediately asked to join the show. He did. Soon he was touring with Hits and Bits, mimicking tap steps and, by 1925, hanging out in the Hoofer's Club in New York. A couple of years later he joined Willie Bryant, another fair-skinned dancer, to form a team known as "Reed and Bryant—Brains as well as Feet". This, with a bit of help from another partnership, the Whitman Sisters, led to Mr Reed's greatest legacy, the Shim Sham Shimmy.
Readers of The Economist will know that there is some disagreement about the Shim Sham, from which Mr Reed developed the Shim Sham Shimmy. Some say it started as a tap routine in the early 1900s; others credit it to the Brains-as-well-as-Feet team. In any event, the Shimmy, in its simple form, became a one-bar routine made up of four eight-bar choruses each consisting of the double shuffle, crossover, an up-and-back shuffle and another move sometimes described as "falling off a log". In one form or another, the Shimmy soon swept the country. It is to this day considered an essential part of the repertoire of all tap dancers, especially as a finale.
The opportunities for Mr Reed now seemed endless. They were not, for segregation was to persist for another two decades and Mr Reed could not resist dancing in both all-white and all-black shows. Caught in the act—the wrong one—once again, he gave up his dance career in 1934 to become a producer, first with an all-tap show called Rhythm Bound and later, in the 1940s, at the Cotton Club in Harlem and elsewhere with musicians such as Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and singers such as Ethel Waters, Lena Horne and Dinah Washington.
As master of ceremonies at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in the 1950s, Mr Reed met the heavyweight prize-fighter, Joe Louis, with whom he then teamed up to form a comedy act. He also turned his hand to writing and arranging music—for Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, among others.
More surprisingly, he made his mark upon the world of golf—thanks, once again, to the ambiguities of his race. A keen golfer, as well as hoofer, Mr Reed was issued with a player's card by officials of the Professional Golfers' Association in San Diego in 1951 who mistakenly took him for a white. This led to the abolition of the all-Caucasian rule, in force since the American PGA's foundation in 1916, and opened the way for black golfers such as Tiger Woods.
Mr Reed received many honours, including, in 2000, the Living Treasure in American Dance Award. He attributed his long life to "women, golf and show business", and maintained an interest in all three to the end. Indeed, he was still teaching the Shim Sham Shimmy this year. Dream on, Horatio Alger, dream on.
Leonard Reed lived in southern California, and taught tap dancing until his late nineties. As a vocal coach, Leonard was blessed to have a student so talented that she was unopposed during the final weeks that she appeared on Star Search; this was Angela Teek, daughter of another Reed prodigy, Spanky Wilson.
He married Barbara De Costa in 1951. At aged 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep from congestive heart failure, in a West Covina, CA hospital on the night of Monday, April 5, 2004. His survivors include his wife Barbara, a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren.
SOURCE: The Alchetron Encyclopedia, Aug 20, 2018
https://alchetron.com/Leonard-Reed
::: Contributor: genieangel (47288257) •08-2022
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