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Tommy Tune [biography]
Dates: 1939-
Birth Date: Feb 28, 1939
Place of Birth: Wichita Fall, Texas
Tommy Tune, the six-foot, seven-inch tall (possibly the tallest dancer in the country) Broadway tap dancer, actor, singer, choreographer, and director, was born Thomas James Tune in Wichita Falls, Texas to oil rig worker, horse trainer, and restaurateur, Jim Tune, and Eva Mae Clark, who met while ballroom dancing. He began dance classes when teachers came to Texas public schools looking for talent. His first teachers were Camille Hill and Emma Mae Horn. He attended Lamar High School in Houston and the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas, and went on to earn his Bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1962. He then took graduate courses at the University of Houston where he studied acting and directing with Shirley Dodge. He moved to New York City ion St. Patrick's Day in 1964, and within twenty-four hours landed a role in the road company of Irma La Douce, starring Shirley McLaine. He created his first choreography for a Milwaukee Melody Tap production of Roberta (1964), and through the 1960s, performed his one-man tap show set to rock music, becoming one of the first tap dancers to break with the jazz tradition.
He then turned his attention to Broadway, making his 1965 debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street, and then in the musical comedy A Joyful Noise (1966), working with director/choreographer Michael Bennett. The musical comedy How Now Dow Jones (1967) followed. Continuing on Broadway, Tune starred in and choreographed the romantic comedy Seesaw (1973), in which he choreographed his own tap routines and won a Tony Award for his performance. He directed and staged the musical numbers in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1978), which retold the sad saga of a much-loved brothel that had to be shut down. The play had marvelously inventive transpositions of tap dancing. In one scene, in which football players are getting ready to go to that whorehouse, they perform a buck-stomping tap dance in flat-flapping feet, and again in boots. Tune then directed and choreographed, with Thommie Walsh, A Day In Hollywood, A Night in the Ukraine (1980), a stage musical double feature with dance numbers from 1930s musical. He directed the musical drama Nine (1982) and then starred in, staged, and choreographed, with Thommie Walsh, My One and Only (1983), a musical tribute to George Gershwin that starred Charles Honi Coles. In 1987, Tune directed and choreographed, with the assistance of Marge Champion, the tap comedy Stepping Out (1987); and then directed and choreographed, with Jeff Calhoun, The Grand Hotel (1989); directed and choreographed, with Jeff Calhoun, The Will Rogers Follies (1991), winning two Tony Awards; and supervised the production of the 1994 revival of the musical Grease.
Long-legged, and extremely musical and lyrical, Tune's unique talents were featured in the film Hello Dolly! (1969), starring Barbra Streisand. The English model actress Twiggy happened to Tune on television, as a featured regular on the 1968 television series Dean Martin Presents the Goldiggers in London and told director Ken Russell about him for his film version of The Boy Friend (1971). Tune was cast in the role of Tommy, Twiggy's imaginary dance spirit who performs miles and miles of dance.
Tune was the winner of the 1984 Dance Magazine Award. He has received eight Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, and nine Tony Awards for his stage work; and is the only person to win Tony Awards in the same categories (Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical) in consecutive years (1990 and 1991), and the first to win in four different categories. He is best known in the tap community as being possibly the tallest tap dancer to grace the stage.
[Sources: Larry Billman, Film Choreographers and Stage Directors: an Illustrated Biographic Encyclopedia, 1893-1995 (1995); Constance Valis Hill, Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History (2010)]