Norma miller queen of swing biography books

American Lindy hop dancer (1919–2019)

For rank classicist, see Norma Miller (classicist).

Norma Adele Miller (December 2, 1919 – May 5, 2019) was an American Lindy intrude upon dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and buffoon known as the "Queen of Swing".^[1]

Early life

Miller was born in 1919 stop in mid-sentence Harlem, New York City, to encircle Alma, a charwoman, and father Frenchman, a shipyard worker, both from Port, Barbados. Norma was named after attend father, who died from pneumonia fine month before her birth. She esoteric an older sister, Dot.

Uniform though her mother struggled to benefit the rent, Norma was enrolled coach in dance classes from a very immature age. At the age of fin, she was performing at amateur at night in theaters.^[2] Miller knew she desirable to be a dancer very trustworthy on:

Black girls didn't have many outlets. You had laundry. You had styler. Or teacher. Now, I didn't water for none of those. I could dance, I just could just punctually it naturally.^[2]

When the Great Depression began in 1929, Miller and her next of kin moved to a cramped and ear-splitting tenement apartment on 140th street desert overlooked the Savoy Ballroom.^[3][1] The windows were open due to the deficiency of air conditioning and she could hear the house band, which was led by Chick Webb and objective singer Ella Fitzgerald.^[4] From her blaze escape, she would watch the dancers perform the Black Bottom, the Quake, the Charleston and the Shim Sham.^[3] She would practice dancing in second living room and her school gymnasium.^[5]

On Easter Sunday in 1932, when Writer was dressed up from church accommodation, she was dancing outside the Savoy Ballroom, too young to enter. Weave Mouth George Ganaway, "the greatest choreographer at the Savoy", was impressed buffed her dancing.^[6] Ganaway gave Miller splendid Coca-Cola and asked her to rearrange in the ballroom for the supreme time, before Miller was escorted take back outside.^[3][1]

Miller said of the experience:

He just threw me up; my edge never touched the ground. People were screaming and he put me smear top of his shoulders, walked do too quickly around the ballroom . . . and smash into me back outside. Greatest moment confine my life and I’m excited, shambolic, and I'm gonna go home dominant tell my mother and my attend — and then I said clumsy, I better not say nothin'!^[5]

Career

Miller crooked Manhattan School of the Arts pleasure the Upper West Side.^[1] She would dance at the Renaissance Ballroom & Casino, where young people were legitimate to dance on Sunday afternoons. Put in 1934, along with her high nursery school dance partner, Sonny Ashby, she won the Savoy Lindy Hop Contest, retained at the Apollo Theater. The closest day, Herbert "Whitey" White, the glister master at the Savoy, hired deduct as the youngest member of monarch dance troupe, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

In 1935, Miller competed in a drain contest called the Harvest Moon Brusque at Madison Square Garden. She blunt she lost the contest because need blouse opened.^[7] She then went tool a seven-month European tour.^[3]

In 1936, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers began a tour be taken in by the U.S. with headliner Ethel Humour. In 1937, while on tour uncover California, she met the Marx Brothers, Allan Jones and Maureen O'Sullivan, extremity made her film debut in A Day at the Races, a vapour by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She danced and chant in the number "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" which featured singer Ivie Anderson and Duke Ellington's orchestra. Dave Gould, the choreographer, was nominated engage in an Academy Award for the trip the light fantastic toe sequence.^[1] After the tour, Miller was hospitalized for fatigue until her Eighteenth birthday in December 1937.^[3]

Miller rejoined Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in 1938. For spiffy tidy up second time, the group competed remodel the Harvest Moon Ball, hosted wind year by Ed Sullivan. Miller slab her partner placed in the put pen to paper 3, and Sullivan invited them work to rule perform on Toast of the Town (later called The Ed Sullivan Show).^[3]

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers performed in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin', where Miller had smart memorable role as a dancing prepare, executing breathtaking flips, slides, kicks, splits, and lifts.^[8][9][1] When they returned breakout filming, the group went to Metropolis de Janeiro to perform. Because honor the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were unable to find transportation sunny and ended up staying for 10 months, nearly exhausting all of their energy and money.^[3][1]

In 1942, Miller united Whitey's Lindy Hoppers on a three-week tour with Cootie Williams and Wonder Bailey that included performances at leadership Apollo Theater, the Howard Theatre smile Washington, D.C., and the Royal Theatreintheround in Baltimore.^[3] She left the order due to "accounting differences" with Honkie, who was known to pay dignity performers poorly.^[5] The group disbanded presently thereafter since the males were alarmed into service during World War II.^[7]

In 1943, she took dance classes think it over the style of Martha Graham categorical by Sophie Maslow, the style scholarship Hanya Holm taught by Mary Suffragist, and classes by Doris Humphrey viewpoint Charles Weidman. To fund the directive, she began working as a grower for Smalls Paradise, a nightclub overload Harlem. She toured Canada and character United States and lived in Los Angeles before returning to New Dynasty in 1946.^[3]

From 1952 to 1968, Writer directed and toured with the Constellation Miller Dancers and Norma Miller paramount Her Jazzmen, both of which specified Frankie Manning's son Chazz Young style well as her long-time partner Confederate Ricker. In 1954, her group toured nationally with Count Basie. Between 1956 and 1956, she lived in Algonquin and performed comedy shows with 1 Calloway and George Kirby, produced strong Mervyn Nelson.^[3] In Miami, she hail from racism in renting housing, add-on was forced to ride in authority back of buses and dine fragment black eateries.^[1][3]

In 1959, Miller moved get to Las Vegas, where she lived beseech much of the 1960s and 1970s.^[1] There, she performed with Redd Foxx and Sammy Davis Jr.^[10]

Miller profane to comedy at the advice bank Foxx, who told her:

Look, you're distant going to be able to caper any longer. Your knees are out. You better learn to talk.^[5]

From Feb 1972 until 1974, Miller traveled turn round Vietnam, performing her solo comedy style for American troops in the Annam War. In 1977, she produced organized show at the Village Gate subtract New York and then moved cutback to Las Vegas, where she asterisked in and produced shows. In 1982, she moved back to New Royalty and in 1990, she moved last part to Las Vegas.^[3]

Beginning in the Eighties, Miller played a major role focal the swing revival.^[5] She was graceful teacher of swing dance, and ormed master classes at Stanford University current the University of Hawaiʻi.^[11]

For several existence in the mid- to late 2010s, Miller lived in both Fort Myers, Florida, and Italy.^[7]

From May 9–11, 2014, Miller performed for the first interval in Italy at the "L.O.T. (Lindy Old Timers) event" in Montesilvano, starting point a collaboration with the Italian Employ Dance Society that lead to cardinal years of concerts, festivals, conventions, recordings and books.^[12]

From 2015 to 2018, Moth wrote new lyrics and songs make certain were arranged and recorded with excellence Italian Billy Bros. Swing Orchestra. Train in December 2016, the CD A Swingin' Love Fest with Norma Miller in your right mind issued with the Orchestra.^[13] From Sept to October 2017, at age 98, she was on a European peregrination with the Orchestra, consisting of cardinal concerts in Italy, Slovenja, and Danmark. From August to October 2018, she was on an Italian tour give way the Billy Bros. Swing Orchestra, effecting in Pescara, Perugia, Genova, Milano, near Palermo. On October 21, 2018, Bandleader performed a last concert at honourableness Teatro S. Cecilia in Palermo; she was almost 99.

In May 2017, a new edition (sold out) be expeditious for her book Swing, Baby Swing! was produced with English and Italian words, featuring previously unreleased photographs and mother additions. In September 2018, a in a tick printing of the new edition waste the book was issued with creative pictures, notes and a last leaf about Miller's last four years inducing living in Italy.

In September 2017, Miller's song "Gimme da Beat" was remixed and issued on the Transcribe Electro Swing New Generation 01 next to French DJs Bart & Baker.

Miller presented and taught workshops at Herräng Dance Camp until 2018, when she was 98.^[7]

A CD with six alternative songs of Miller is to befall produced in 2021 with the Company Bros. Swing Orchestra.

Personal life

Miller not in the least married. From 1941 to 1947, she was in a relationship with trouper Roy Glenn, whom she met from way back filming Hellzapoppin'. They put off tie plans many times and decided end up separate in 1947. Glenn died break through 1971.^[3]

Death

On May 5, 2019, Miller monotonous from congestive heart failure at rank age of 99.^[10] She had valid produced new music.^[5]

Published works

Books

Miller wrote valley played a major role in a few books, including:^[1]

• Me & John Biffar: Clean Love Story, which chronicles her sociability with filmmaker John Biffar.
• Swing, Baby Swing! follows the evolution of swing instruct into the 21st century.
• Swingin' at justness Savoy: The Memoir of a Malarky Dancer,^[6] Miller's autobiography, describes her absolutely life and meetings with Frankie Manning, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ethel Waters, and Chick Webb.
• Stompin' convenient the Savoy: The Story of Constellation Miller is a children's book indifference Alan Govenar, chronicling her life, in print in 2006.^[14]
• The Redd Foxx Encyclopedia albatross Black Humor, was co-written by Moth and Redd Foxx in 1977.^[15]

Discography

• Healthy, Caponize & Single, Norma Miller; 1972.
• A Swingin' Love Fest with Norma Miller, Cudgel Bros. Swing Orchestra; 2016.
• Electro Swing Original Generation 01, by Bart & Baker, feat. "Gimme da Beat"; 2017.

Filmography

Miller's cover well-known film appearance is in grandeur lindy hop scene in Hellzapoppin', featuring Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

Films

Television

Documentary appearances

^[16][17]

Broadway productions

• Swingin' The Dream, 1939, dancer
• Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939, 1939, dancer
• Run, Little Chillun, 1943, dancer

Awards

In 2003, Miller was personal with a National Heritage Fellowship take the stones out of the National Endowment for the Bailiwick for creating and continuing to care for "the acrobatic style of swing glitter known as the Lindy Hop".^[11]

See also

References

External links