His assistant choreographer was Jeanette Bates. Jack Cole: Beginnings of a Hollywood Jazz Dance Legend │Jacob's Pillow Dance - Duration: 10:47. This film had four nominations at the 1945 Academy Awards. Other than Monroe, Cole also aided the progress of dancers in the theatre, among them Carol Haney and Gwen Verdon, the latter’s professional relationship with him lasting several years. Other films include Three For The Show, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (both 1955), Les Girls (1957) and again with Monroe on Let’s Make Love (1960).Concurrent with his film work, Cole worked on stage productions; frequently his numbers were the best things in otherwise indifferent shows. Before forming his own dance company, Cole worked with various dance troupes displaying an original talent.… Read Full Biography. Later shows in New York were Jamaica (1957), A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), Foxy (1964) and Man Of La Mancha (1965). Jacob's Pillow 8,995 views. His speciality was in creating exotic and often erotic dance routines. He had already appeared in the film Moon Over Miami (1941) and from the mid-40s he created dance routines for films such as Eadie Was A Lady, Cover Girl, Tonight And Every Night (all 1945), The Jolson Story, Tars And Spars, The Thrill Of Brazil (all 1946), and The Merry Widow (1952). Gifted though he was, in many ways Cole was before his time. Jack Cole was born on April 27, 1911 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA as John Ewing Richter. The eroticism of much of his work, especially in the use he made of male dancers, would have found a more open audience in the 70s, the decade in which he died. Before forming his own dance company, Cole worked with various dance troupes displaying an original talent. He performed his “Fosse and Niles” act with his first wife, Mary Ann Niles, in DANCE ME A SONG (also a musical song-and-dance revue) which opened January 20th, 1950.ALIVE AND KICKING closed after a mere 46 performances and DANCE ME A SONG closed after only 35. Dances and Musical Numbers Staged by Jack Cole; MusicalOriginal.
The show opened on January 17th, 1950—just three days before Bob Fosse’s Broadway debut. On COLE: article— Kisselgoff, Anna, "Recalling an Innovator of Film Choreography," in the New York Times , section C, 7 February 1994. Jack Cole's first Broadway production as a choreographer was Something for the Boys in 1943. L to R: Bob Scheerer, Cliff Ferre, and Bob Fosse in the Broadway show, DANCE ME A SONG, 1950.Jack Cole and Gwen Verdon dancing “Dove’s Blues” in the Broadway show, ALIVE AND KICKING, 1950.Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse made strikingly similar Broadway debuts. Jack Cole was the "exciting" and "scary" choreographer who helped some of Hollywood's greatest stars.
There were some hits, though, and among his Broadway credits between the late 40s and the mid-50s are Magdalena (1948) and Kismet (1953); the latter a show that offered an ideal setting for his interest in eastern-tinged music and dance.
As mentor to a number of major dancers, as an innovator of dance movement, and as a filmmaker concerned with the relationship of camera and dance, Jack Cole provided a model for filming dance but often in films that have reputations inferior to his own. Cole set the bar high with his understanding of dance and its origin/history, he learnt and understood other styles/techniques, from Modern, Caribbean, to Oriental.Reiko Sato, Patricia Dunn, Wonci Lui, Jack Dodds and Marc Wilder, in Kismet, 1955, performing in “Not Since Nineveh.”Dances and Musical Numbers Staged By Jack Cole.Even when Mr. Cole was choreographing his numbers, he would at times retain artistic control of filming, set designs and wardrobe. Jack Cole began as a modern dancer with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn and later Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey. The father of theatrical jazz dance Theatrical jazz dance innovator Jack Cole (1911–1974) forever changed the face of theater dance by mixing ethnic movement with jazz—what he dubbed “urban folk dance.” Culling movement from the dance forms of … b. He also worked on the 1955 film version of Kismet.