Dancer
As a young man he showed aptitude in dancing which, with his elegant fashion sense, enabled him to gain employment as a dancer in New York City nightclubs, often in the same venues as Rudolph Valentino before Valentino became a movie actor. Raft became part of the stage act of flamboyant speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and his success led him to Broadway where he again worked as a dancer. Raft later made a semi-autobiographical film called Broadway (1942) about this period in which he plays himself. He also worked in London as a chorus boy in the early 1920s. Fred Astaire, in his autobiography Steps in Time (1959), says Raft was a lightning-fast dancer and did "the fastest Charleston I ever saw."
Vi Kearney, later a dancer in shows for Charles Cochran and Andre Charlot, was quoted as saying:
Oh yes, I knew him (George Raft). We were in a big show together. Sometimes, to eke out our miserable pay, we'd do a dance act after the show at a club and we'd have to walk back home because all the buses had stopped for the night by that time. He'd tell me how he was going to be a big star one day and once he said that when he'd made it how he'd make sure to arrange a Hollywood contract for me. I just laughed and said: 'Come on, Georgie, stop dreaming. We're both in the chorus and you know it.' Yes. But by that time I'd decided to marry... How many times do I have to tell you ...chorus girls don't go out with chorus boys.Read more about this topic: George Raft
Famous quotes containing the word dancer:
“Not fat but the greatest possible suppleness and strength is what a good dancer wants from his nourishment—and I could not even guess what the spirit of a philosopher might wish to be more than a good dancer. For dance is his ideal, and also his art, and finally also his only piety, his “service to God.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The average parent may, for example, plant an artist or fertilize a ballet dancer and end up with a certified public accountant. We cannot train children along chicken wire to make them grow in the right direction. Tying them to stakes is frowned upon, even in Massachusetts.”
—Ellen Goodman (b. 1941)
“The actions of each dancer were scrutinized with great care and any little mistake noted and remembered. The strain upon a dancer was consequently so great that when a fine dancer died soon after a feast it was said, “The peoples’ looks have killed him.””
—Merle Colby, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)