Happy 117th Birthday Busby Berkeley!
by Katelyn Alcott
This month, on November 29th, we are celebrating the birthday of one of Hollywood's greatest musical choreographers.
Prior to his illustrious career in choreography, Berkley put to use his great talent for direction during his service in World War I. There, Berkley was in charge of the direction of parades. His background in this field would prove useful to him after his return to America, at the close of the war. Berkley stumbled across his directing career rather by chance. Having started out as a stage actor and assistant director in small scale productions, he suddenly found himself in the position of director for the musical "Holka-Polka". It was during this production that Berkley realized his natural ability for large scale dance choreography. From here, his Broadway career took-off, choreographing several productions for Ziegfeld.
As his career carried him to Hollywood Berkley grew skeptic of the way things were produced there. Although choreographers would stage and teach their own numbers all aspects of camera belonged to the director. Berkley, wishing to try his chances at mastering the camera side of his work as well, and convinced all of his directors to allow him to be in charge of what was filmed and shown on screen. Berkley was always finding new and innovative ways to film the beautiful scenes he depicted. He was also one of the first to show close up images of the girls during the film
One of Berkley's most famous works was the production of Warner Brothers "42nd Street". The production was such a success that Warner Brothers signed him for a seven year contract.
A little known fact about Busby Berkley is that he never once took a dancing lesson!
Here are some links for more information:
Happy November Birthdays!
We are always grateful for every one of the amazing people who support
Monkeyhouse and November is filled with birthdays for many of those
people. Don't forget to send your love to:
Eva Dean, Donna Rosenberg, Jon Taft, Ryan P. Casey, Courtney Wagner,
Rick Frank, Remy Marin, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Alexander Godunov, Mandy Patinkin
If
you don't know who all these fabulous people are make sure you take a
minute to check out some of the links! Whether they are famous
choreographers or local supporters our birthday boys and girls do some
really amazing things.
Want to be on the birthday list? Click here to update your info and let us know when your birthday is!
Want to be on the birthday list? Click here to update your info and let us know when your birthday is!
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