More Items:

• Louis DaPron

From:

• Performing Arts Encyclopedia
• Tap Dance America

Dates: 1913-1987
Birth Date: Feb 3, 1913
Death Date: Jul 21, 1987

Place of Birth: Hammond, Indiana
Place of Death: Agoura, California

Louis DaPron, tap dancer, choreographer and teacher whose dazzling tap skills created some of the 1940s most energetic dance sequences, was born into a family of hoofers. He began performing in vaudeville at the age of four, being taught by his father, who had studied with the Irish softshoe dancer George Primrose. His father told the story that as a child, sitting in a high chair, young Louis began to rhythmically bang his silverware. Rather than trying to quiet him down, his parents simply substituted the utensils with drumsticks, and at the age of three, he performed on the vaudeville stage with the John Taylor orchestra as its young traps player. "Dressed in tiny evening clothes, he stands behind the huge drum which tops his head by several inches," described the local newspaper. "With the skill of a concert master, he keeps snare and bass drum, cymbal and traps, all going at once in perfect time to the orchestra."

The family moved to Denver, Colorado and opened a dance school where the teenaged DaPron taught and appeared in musicals at West High School. In 1930 at a Chicago convention of dance teachers, the seventeen-year-old imitated the dancing of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and quickly gained notoriety as an expert tap dancer. In 1935 the family moved to Los Angeles and opened a dance school. While appearing as the featured dancer at the Trocadero nightclub in Hollywood, the twenty-two year old was signed by Paramount to partner Eleanor Whitney in musical films, in which he made his film debut, choreographing his own routine, in Three Cheers for Love (1937).

Known as "The Ace of Taps" because of his almost unbelievable speed, DaPron won quick fame as a leading exponent of rhythm tap dancing. He was signed to a long-term contract as a teacher by the Fanchon and Marco School of Dance. After eight film appearances, including a clip dancing with Vera Marshall in "Breakin' in a New Pair of Shoes," (1935), a soft-shoe routine with shim sham steps and swinging breaks, all built around social dance's closed and open positions, DaPron tried his luck on the New York stage, playing the Paramount Theater. He returned to Hollywood to assist LeRoy Prinz on Dancing on a Dime (1940). His first solo effort choreographing for other dancers was Sweetheart of the Campus (1941) which starred Ruby Keeler in her last dance film. That led to a contract at Universal Studios where he became the dance master for its Jivin' Jack and Jills musical series with dancing stars Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan. Working with O'Connor on a number films and television shows, DaPron supplied the sounds for O'Connor's taps, either live off-camera or pre- or post-recorded. DaPron also staged musical scenes for Gower Champion, Perry Como, Doris Day, Vera-Ellen, Judy Garland, Mitzi Gaynor, Bob Hope, Ruby Keeler, Jerry Lewis, Ann-Margaret, Ann Miller, and Ginger Rogers. He holds the distinction as the choreographer who has appeared in the most films, performing his own work. He was also an extremely popular teacher, with his own school in Canoga Park and on the faculty at the California Dance Theater in Agoura Hills. Hundreds of students, including Rusty Frank, carry on DaPron's unique tap heritage.

[Sources: Larry Billman, Film Choreographers and Stage Directors: an Illustrated Biographic Encyclopedia, 1893-1995 (1995); Rusty Frank, Tap!: the greatest tap dance stars and their stories 1900-1955 (1990); Broadway Internet Database; Rusty Frank, director, Louis DaPron Chorus (2006)]