Gregory Hines

Actor, dancer, and entertainer

• Born: February 14, 1946
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: August 9, 2003
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, Hines revived the American public’s interest in tap dancing. His dancing and acting skills catapulted him to Hollywood stardom.

Early Life

Gregory Oliver Hines was born on February 14, 1946, in were chosen to Maurice Hines, Sr., a nightclub bouncer and drummer, and Alma Lola Lawless Hines, a homemaker. Hines and his older brother, Maurice, Jr., were raised in the Washington Heights neighborhood near Harlem. When Hines was three years old, his mother enrolled him in tap dance classes with his brother. Two years later, Hines and his brother started performing as the Hines Kids. The brothers’ song-and-tap-dance act was successful enough that they performed throughout the United States and Europe. Hines attended Willard Mace Elementary School, which catered to professional children, and Quintano’s School for Young Professionals. He and his brother also performed at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. In 1954, the boys were hired for small roles in the Broadway musical The Girl in Pink Tights. In 1955, they changed the name of their act to the Hines Brothers. In 1966, when their father joined the duo as their drummer, they became Hines, Hines, and Dad. Together, they toured throughout the United States and Europe including London’s Palladium and the Olympia Theater in Paris, France. They also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1973, the family’s act broke up and Hines moved to Venice, California, where he formed the jazz-rock band Severance.

Life’s Work

In 1978, Hines returned to New York City and won a small part in the Broadway play The Last Minstrel Show. That May, he and his brother reunited to tap-dance in the musical Eubie! Hines’s performance earned him his first Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. In 1979, Hines took on the role of Scrooge in Comin’ Uptown, an African American musical version of Charles Dickens’s classic novella A Christmas Carol (1843), which earned him another Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. In 1981, he earned his third Tony Award nomination for his performance in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. That year, he returned to California to pursue a Hollywood film career. In his first two film roles, he played a Roman slave in Mel Brooks’s The History of the World, Part I (1981) and a medical examiner in Wolfen (1981). In 1983, he earned a small part in Deal of the Century, and in 1984, he appeared in The Muppets Take Manhattan.

Hines’s big break came in 1984, when he played dancer Sandman Williams in the hit The Cotton Club. This was followed by White Nights (1985), in which Hines again had the opportunity to tap-dance. In 1988, in an effort to promote tap dancing in the United States, he petitioned for a national tap dance day, and in 1989, he produced the PBS television special Gregory Hines: Tap Dance in America. That same year, he danced in the blockbuster hit Tap alongside other tap dancing greats, including Sammy Davis, Jr., Jimmy Slyde, Harold Nicholas, Bunny Briggs, and Sandman Sims. In 1991, he had roles in the films Eve of Destruction and A Rage in Harlem with Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, and Richard Pryor. In 1992, Hines returned to Broadway in the critically acclaimed musical Jelly’s Last Jam. His portrayal of Jelly Roll Morton, a Creole musician who rejected his black heritage, earned him his fourth Tony nomination and his first Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Throughout the 1990’s, Hines continued to appear in popular films such as Renaissance Man (1994), Waiting to Exhale (1995), The Preacher’s Wife (1996), and Mad Dog Time (1996). In 1997, he starred in the short-lived television series The Gregory Hines Show on CBS. In 1999, he earned a recurring role on the popular NBC comedy Will and Grace. Hines returned to dancing in the 2001 Showtime film Bojangles, starring as tap dancing legend Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. On August 9, 2003, Hines died of liver cancer in Los Angeles, California.

Significance

Hines’s lifelong passion for tap dancing earned him the distinction of being one of America’s most popular tap dancers of all time. He successfully reintroduced and reinvented the art of tap dancing both on Broadway and in Hollywood. Hines also used his performing skills to become a successful actor with dozens of film, television, and theater roles to his credit.

Bibliography

Abrams, Dennis. Gregory Hines: Entertainer. New York: Chelsea House, 2008. This book for younger readers details Hines’s life and career as a dancer and actor.

DeAngelis, Gina. Gregory Hines. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. This book provides a detailed history of Hines’s personal and professional life.

Goldberg, Jane. Shoot Me While I’m Happy: Memories from the Tap Goddess of the Lower East Side. Foreword by Gregory Hines. New York: Woodshed Productions, 2008. Tap dancer Goldberg recounts how she studied and danced with some of the genre’s greats. Goldberg had a long friendship with Hines and includes information and stories about him in the book.