[Deathwatch] Gregory Hines, Actor-dancer, 57

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Actor-dancer Gregory Hines dead at 57
Sunday, August 10, 2003 Posted: 1:01 PM EDT (1701 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/10/hines.obit.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Tony Award winner Gregory Hines, the
tap-dancing actor who starred on Broadway and in movies including
"White Nights" and "Running Scared," has died, his publicist said. He
was 57. 

Hines died Saturday in Los Angeles of cancer, publicist Allen Eichorn
said. 

The dancer, among the best in his generation, won a 1993 Tony for the
musical "Jelly's Last Jam." 

Hines became internationally known as part of a jazz tap duo with his
brother, Maurice, and the two danced together in the musical revue
"Eubie!" in 1978. The brothers later performed together in Broadway's
"Sophisticated Ladies" and on film in 1984's "The Cotton Club." 

In "The Cotton Club," Hines also had a lead acting role, which led to
more work in film. He starred with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1985's "White
Nights" and with Billy Crystal in 1986's "Running Scared," and he
appeared with Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett in 1995's "Waiting to
Exhale," among other movies. 

On television, he had his own sitcom in 1997 called "The Gregory Hines
Show," as well as a recurring role on "Will and Grace." This past
March, he appeared in the spring television series "Lost at Home." 

Gregory Oliver Hines was born on February 14, 1946, in New York City.
He has said his mother urged him and his older brother toward tap
dancing because she wanted them to have a way out of the ghetto. 

When he was a toddler, he said, his brother was already taking tap
lessons and would come home and teach him steps. They began performing
together when Gregory Hines was five, and they performed at the Apollo
for two weeks when he was six. 

In 1974 they were cast in the Broadway musical "The Girl in Pink
Tights," starring French ballerina Jeanmaire. 

"I don't remember not dancing," Hines said in a 2001 interview with The
Associated Press. "When I realized I was alive and these were my
parents, and I could walk and talk, I could dance." 

Paired with his brother Maurice, he was a professional child star. In
his teens, joined by their father, Maurice Sr., on drums, they were
known as Hines, Hines and Dad. 

Later he earned Tony nominations on Broadway in "Eubie," "Comin'
Uptown" and "Sophisticated Ladies." He won a Tony for best actor in a
musical playing jazz legend "Jelly Roll" Morton in "Jelly's Last Jam." 


There was a time, he said, when he didn't want to dance. He was in his
mid-20s, "a hippie" in a brief moment of rebellion, he said in 2001. 

"I felt that I didn't want to be in show business anymore. I felt that
I wanted to be a farmer," he said with a laugh. 

Invited to work on a farm in upstate New York, he quickly learned a
lesson. Beginning before dawn, "I was milking cows and shoveling
terrible stuff and working all day. By the end of the day all I wanted
was my tap shoes -- I thought, `What am I doing? I better get back
where I belong on the stage where we work at night and can sleep
late!"' 

Hines had a falling out with his older brother in the late 1960s
because the younger was becoming influenced by counter-culture and
wanted to perform to rock music and write his songs. 

In 1973, the family act disbanded and Hines moved to Venice Beach. "I
was going through a lot of changes," Hines told the Washington Post in
1981. "Marriage. We'd just had a child. Divorce. I was finding myself."


He returned to New York in 1978, partly to be near his daughter, Daria,
who was living with Hines' first wife, dance therapist Patricia
Panella. His brother, with whom he had reconciled, told him about an
audition for the Broadway-bound "The Last Minstrel Show." He got the
part, but the show opened and closed in Philadelphia. 

Hines landed his first film role in the 1981 Mel Brooks comedy "History
of the World Part I," in which he played a Roman slave as a last-minute
replacement for Richard Pryor. 

Hines' has been nominated for a number of Emmy Awards, most recently in
2001 for his lead role in the mini-series "Bojangles." His PBS special
"Gregory Hines: Tap Dance in America" was nominated in 1989, and in
1982 he was nominated for his performance in "I Love Liberty," a
variety special saluting America. 

He also won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1999 for his work as the voice of
"Big Bill" in the Bill Cosby animated TV series "Little Bill" and NAACP
Image Awards for "Bojangles" and "Running Scared."