The Duke and His Court

By Gerald Clarke

Gregory Hines taps to stardom in Sophisticated Ladies

There are many good reasons why people are lining up to see Broadway's new hit, Sophisticated Ladies. There is, first of all, the music Duke Ellington composed, ranging from the driving rhythms of Cottontail to the dreamy melodies of Mood Indigo and Solitude. Second, there is a fine ensemble company of singers and dancers, both blacks and whites, who work together as closely as the two halves of a zipper. Third, there is Judith Jamison, who has forsaken stardom with the Alvin Ailey dance troupe to glide majestically across the stage of the Lunt-Fontanne Theater and reveal a surprisingly agreeable singing voice. The most sophisticated of all sophisticated ladies, Jamison looks like an Egyptian statue come to life, Nefertiti with a satiny Harlem sheen.

Fourth--and perhaps one, two and three as well--there is Co-Star Gregory Hines, 35, who is a kind of duke himself. Hines, though, plays his tunes with his feet. He is a descendant of such tap masters as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bill ("Bojangles") Robinson, Honi Coles and the Nicholas Brothers, the duo that provided, in old film clips and a brief live appearance, the happiest moments in last month's Academy Awards ceremonies. Tapsichore is back in full swing, after a lull of more than two decades. The balletic choreography of Oklahoma! sounded taps for tap in the '40s, and West Side Story buried it in the late '50s. Only in the '70s, with such shows as No, No Nanette and Sugar Babies, did it begin its comeback. Sophisticated Ladies is proof that audiences still love that syncopated beat.

Slim and rakish, Hines wields the fastest pair of spats in the East; his feet move with percussive force. In the show's most exciting number, Kinda Dukish, Hines recalls Bojangles' famous stair routine, tapping his way up a flight and then, with audacious nonchalance, tapping back down again--accompanied by cheers from the audience. "His feet are going 150 miles an hour," says Jamison. Adds Co-Producer Manheim Fox: "Hines is the perfect embodiment of the spirit of Duke Ellington. His performance expresses everything he has been doing since the age of two."

It does, and he has: Hines' mother had Gregory and his older brother Maurice dancing as soon as they were out of diapers. "At the time blacks tended to become policemen or athletes," Gregory says, "but my mother decided that we'd have something better, and she became our agent, our manager and the person who screwed the taps on our shoes. I don't remember a time when I wasn't dancing."

"The Hines Kids" started out in Harlem, where they were born, but soon were traveling around the country as a warm-up act for bigger stars. In 1962 they joined forces with their father Maurice and became Hines, Hines and Dad. That was their name when that old talent scout Johnny Carson saw them in Chicago and invited them to appear on his show, the first of a dozen or more visits. After that they got even bigger bookings, at the Palladium in London and the Olympia Theater in Paris.

Success did not bring a happy ending to H., H. & D., however. The trio always seemed to spend more than it made, and Gregory and Maurice began tugging in opposite directions. In 1973 they finally split up, and Gregory, who had acquired a wife, a daughter, a dog and an expensive Manhattan apartment, left it all behind and headed to laid-back Venice, Calif. "That was the free-love, tune-in, turn-on period out on the Coast," he says. "It sounded good to me, so I went. I was going through what most people experience in their teens. When you start working at the age of six, you miss out on a bit."

Venice proved the tonic Gregory needed. He joined a men's sensitivity group, started a jazz-rock band--called Severance, fittingly enough--and met Pamela Koslow. In 1978 he and Pam returned to Manhattan so Hines could be close to his daughter Daria, who is now ten. All grown up at the age of 32, he was happy to dance again with Maurice in Eubie!, which lasted for a year and a half. After that came two movies. Mel Brooks' The History of the World--Part I is due in June and Wolfen, with Albert Finney, is scheduled to be released in July.

The out-of-town woes of Sophisticated Ladies might have made Hines long for Venice again. Gregory was fired and rehired, and for a time he and Jamison, who are required to engage in a long, soulful kiss in Act I, were not even speaking. But the last-minute arrival of Director-Choreographer Michael Smuin brought a new concept and a new spirit to the show. He discarded the book, brought in new numbers and took out others. Between Washington and New York, the production changed dramatically--and theatergoers can be happy that it did. The show is sophisticated, but more than that, it bounces with joy. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing," sings the cast, and they are right. Hines, Jamison and the show's other elegant folk do everything but swing from the balcony. So does the audience.

--By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Elaine Dutka/New York

With reporting by Elaine Dutka/New York

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