The first is from the 1938 film, God's Step Children directed by the pioneer black filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux whose career spanned about 30 years. Usually, he found ways to include nightclub dance sequences in his films. This dancer is identified as Sammy Gardiner.
This is Cora La Redd with the Noble Sissle Orchestra from That's The Spirit, a one-reel musical comedy made in 1933. The film also includes the great Mantan Moreland and Flournoy Miller, who collaborated with Sissle and Eubie Blake to create the 1921 stage musical Shuffle Along.
I got really intrigued by this dancer, Lorraine Krueger, because I liked the rhythms and steps she was doing. It had me wondering who influenced her, and I felt pretty sure it had to be a black dancer. Well, in doing research and viewing more clips of her, I found my answer. The first clip, from the short 1940 film, Tickled Pinky, is what I initially saw. The second clip is from the 1944 film, Career Girl, and gives me my answer. Her introduction of her dance in that clip reveals those times and I think it'll be pretty obvious who her influence was!
I'm always fascinated by dance acts, and found this act called The Steiner Brothers from a 1958 television show. What I usually do, when I run across something I don't know much about, is look it up quickly online. In this case, I found an article about these brothers. Turns out they were from Canada and, as of this 2016 article, are still around. Click here to read the article.
This last one is for you Baby Boomers out there. It's not really of someone I never heard of, but is someone I didn't realized tap danced (should have been in my Part 1 "YouTube finds" post!). One of the stars of the 1950s sit com Father Knows Best, was Elinor Donahue, who played the oldest daughter of the characters played by Robert Young and Jane Wyatt. I knew she had been a dancer, but didn't know she tapped. Here she is doing it in an episode of that show.
BRAVO! Great stuff Thanks
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