Any event that reunites Broadway’s Bye Bye Birdie stars Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera, then brings together Astaire (Fred’s daughter Ava) and Kelly (Gene’s widow Patricia) is top-shelf as far as I’m concerned. You may not have read about it or seen media coverage, but all of us who gathered for the Professional Dancers Society luncheon on Sunday enjoyed the best and the brightest of old-school show business as Pds president Mitzi Gaynor presided over a terrific tribute to Leslie Caron and choreographer Dee Dee Wood. The Pds is affiliated with The Actors Fund, which helps dancers and other performers in times of need, as well as providing job counseling and—in its most ambitious...
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- 4/2/2014
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Marc Breaux, the choreographer who with his wife Dee Dee Wood created Dick Van Dyke's famous chimney sweep number in Mary Poppins and other spectacular dances for film and television, has died. He was 89. Breaux died Tuesday in Mesa, Ariz., in an assisted-living facility, his son, Michael, told the Los Angeles Times. After director Robert Wise saw Van Dyke's lithe performance in 1964's Mary Poppins, he immediately hired Breaux and Wood for another Julie Andrews classic, The Sound of Music, released a year later. Van Dyke also took the pair to work with him on Chitty Chitty Bang
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- 11/22/2013
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
If film buffs know the name Marc Breaux, it’s likely because he and his partner Dee Dee Wood choreographed the ageless Mary Poppins; they were married at the time. Their other high-profile screen credits include The Sound of Music, The Happiest Millionaire, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Slipper and the Rose. I was sorry to read of his passing today and reminded of a tidbit I learned when I hosted a Poppins reunion some years ago at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. During the “Step in Time” number, a choreographic tour-de-force, I found myself thinking of the boisterous dancing in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Following the screening, I asked Dee Dee Wood if that...
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- 11/21/2013
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
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