Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Black Bottom to Broadway
2. Try Dancing
3. Fifteen Cents a Dance
4. The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire
5. Chica Chica Boom Chic
6. Red Robins, Bob Whites, and Bluebirds
7. Wonderful Nonsense
8. He Could Make a Wooden Indian Dance
9. The Life of an Elephant
10. Star Turns
11. Seventy-Five Watusi Witch Doctors
12. Help Me Dream
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

The author of numerous books on theater history, John Franceschina is also a former professor of theatre at Pennsylvania State University. Off-Broadway he has served as dance arranger and musical director and as accompanist for Angela Lansbury, Elke Sommer, Nell Carter, Jan Peerce, Robert Merrill, Lotte Lenya, Paige O'Hara, Chita Rivera, and Gwen Verdon.

Reviews

"I always considered Hermes Pan to be my 'other father', and though I knew much of his story, in this wonderfully informative book John Franceschina has filled the gaps." --Ava Astaire McKenzie
"John Franceschina's Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire restores glory to an overlooked dance genius, while also bringing back to life the golden age of Hollywood musicals. I ran out and began renting every Hermes Pan DVD I could find." --Richard Hornby, Professor of Theatre, University of California, Riverside, Theatre Critic, The Hudson Review
"The life and work of one of Hollywood's most prolific dance creators has finally been written. Above and beyond Hermes Pan's iconic partnership with Astaire on nineteen films over a period of 35 years, Franceschina gives us incredible detail on the multiple tasks a Hollywood 'Dance Director' of the 1930s'-1950's performed." --Larry Billman, author of Fred Astaire: A Bio-Bibliography, and Film Choreographers and Dance Directors
"Hermes Pan was a uniquely American choreographer. His stylish dance direction defined not only the style of Hollywood film dancing but also that of American artistic dance as a whole. Anyone interested in the history dance in America should know what is in this fine book." --James Thomas, Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, Wayne State University
"Interesting reading." --DC Theatre Scene
"Read this book with YouTube videos by your side." --Dance Magazine
"Hermes Pan: The Man Who Dance with Fred Astaire provides a wealth of factual information about Pan's life and his movies, with the salutary effect of sending the reader back to look again at his films with a heightened sense of the process that brought those films to the screen." --Dance Chronicle