Tap
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Nick Castle Jr.
Arthur Duncan
Rob Mcgraw
Garner Thomas
Linda Sohl Donnell
Jane Goldberg
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
An ex-convict who is also a wonderful tap dancer, must choose between a life of crime or the pursuit of a show business career.
Director
Nick Castle Jr.
Cast
Arthur Duncan
Rob Mcgraw
Garner Thomas
Linda Sohl Donnell
Jane Goldberg
Chance Taylor
Louis Castle
Lloyd Kino
Van Porter
Savion Glover
Dianne Walker
Dorothy Wasserman
Steve Zimmerman
Carla Earle
Jimmy Slyde
Frederick Boothe
Harold Nicholas
Joe Morton
Suzzanne Douglas
Pat Zicar
Terry Lindholm
Sharie Dietz
Sammy Davis Jr.
Owen Johnston
Jamie Pisano
Bernie Lenoff
Lanny Cordolla
Wynonna Smith
Chris Tedesco
Joel Weiss
Elmira Collins
Randy Brenner
Gregory Hines
Yunoka Doyle
Bunny Briggs
Dick Anthony Williams
Karen Pruncziik
Pat Rico
Paul Delvecchio
Shaun Jones
Jewel Delegall
Cheryl Baxter
Stephenie Lawton
Emily Kay
Alvino Bennett
Kevin Guillaume
Bill Anagnos
King Errisson
Steve Condos
Jamie M Pisano
Frances E Nealy
Ruddy L Garner
Damon Winmon
Catherine Wilkinson
Kelly Shenefiel
Nikki Rene
Sandman Sims
Mike Anthony Perna
Barbara Perry
Crew
Tim Abbatoye
Gary Adelson
Sharon Alouf
Mary Andrews
J H Arrufat
Billy G Arter
K C Bailey
Antony Baldasare
Regina Belle
Leonard Benedetto
Irving Berlin
Gena Bleier
Arthur Blum
Sue Bokobza
Destiny Borden
Rick Bota
James Branigan
Bunny Briggs
Jaki Brown-karman
Roy Bryson
Michelle Buhler
Peter Bunetta
Harold Burns
Doug Buttleman
David E Campbell
Nick Castle Jr.
Sharon Chittell
Rick Chudacoff
Roydon Clark
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Peter Clarson
Phil Cory
Janet Costner
Ron Cox
Richard Coyle
Irving Cummings
Lee Cunningham
Jim Curry
Michael Curry
Steven Davis
Brad Dechter
Brad Dechter
Brad Dechter
Frank Decurtis
Denise Della Valle
John L Demps
Alfred Desio
Alfred Desio
Anthony Desposito
Henry Diltz
John Dunn
Bruce Dyall
Marylou Eales
Albert Able Eisenmann
Gregg Elam
Gregg Elam
Kirk Elam
Joe Ericksen
Jeff Feather
David Fechtor
Dorothy Fields
Evelyn Fitzgerald
Mo Flam
Christopher Flick
Samuel Buddy Fries
Ruddy L Garner
Dorothy Gazeley
Jane Goldberg
David Gribble
Don Grierson
Dow Griffith
Larry Hand
Gene K Hara
Barbara Harris
Darryl Hill
Gregory Hines
Lawrence Hoff
Dan Holloway
James Newton Howard
Haddon Hufford
Michael A Huisman
H. Bruce Humberstone
Robert Huweiler
Michael Hyde
Susan Kelber
Patrick Kennedy
Amy Keys
Dan Kirshoff
Steve Kirshoff
Martin A Kline
Frank Krejsa
Sidney Lanfield
Walter Lang
Margo Lazaro
Ron Leamon
Bryn Leetch
Ellie Letang
Henry Letang
Henry Earl Lewis
Michael Mason
Archie Mayo
Jimmy Mchugh
Brian Mcloughlin
Robert W Meckler
Sandra M Middleton
Bernie Miller
Oscar Mitt
Dave Moon
Leslie Morales
Mark Mueller
Kevin Murphy
Richard W Murphy
Luc Nicknair
Jan Nizen
Patricia Norris
Patricia Norris
Christopher Notarthomas
Emmitt-leon O'neill
Jeffrey A. Okun
John E Oliver
Barbara Palmer
George Parra
Jane Paul
Penny Perry
Darrin Pulford
John T Reitz
Paul Reuter
David Richardson
Evalyn Rodin
David Ronne
Steve Rose
Sonja Roth
Barbara Rothstein
Connie Rowbotham
Joan Rowe
Gregg Rudloff
Michael Runyard
Craig Safan
Francine Saperstein
Robert Schaper
Steve Scheutzow
Patricia Reed Scott
Ellen Segal
Frank Serrano
Bill Shea
Joel Sill
Frank Silva
Mary Ann Skweres
Ellie Smith
Jo Ann Smith
John J Smith
Steve Smith
Curt Sobel
Curt Sobel
Susan Starr
Chris Stoia
David Stone
Barbara Stumacher
Neri Kyle Tannenbaum
James Taylor
Monte Thomas
Jerry Trent
Michael Tronick
Richard Vane
Stephan Von Hase
Paul Wachter
Narada Michael Walden
Aaron T Walker
T-bone Walker
Stephen Ward
Diane Warren
Devra Wasserman
Dorothy Wasserman
Sharon West
Dennis White
Tony Whitman
Tim Williams
Darren Wiseman
Gary Wright
Ian C Wright
Robert Yeoman
Curtis Yomtob
Glenn W Young
Film Details
Technical Specs
Articles
Tap -
When Gregory Hines died of liver cancer in 2003 at only 57 years old, the world lost one of its greatest dancers and an arresting screen personality. This film is arguably the best tribute to Hines and the first in many years to turn the spotlight on the art form he loved and advanced.
Hines was the son of dancer, musician and actor Maurice Hines. He began tap dancing when he was two years old and by the age of five was a semi-pro performer. He and his brother Maurice studied with famed choreographer Henry LeTang, and the two soon formed an act, making their Broadway debut in The Girl in the Pink Tights in 1954. Known variously as "The Hines Kids" and "The Hines Brothers," they also learned from acts they performed with, among them Howard "Sandman" Sims and The Nicholas Brothers. After their father joined the act as their drummer in 1963, they changed the name to "Hines, Hines and Dad."
At one time, tap dancing had been a celebrated staple of musicals and dance performances, a uniquely American evolution from Irish jigs, English clog dancing and the highly rhythmic Juba or hambone dance of African slaves. Made famous by such stars as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, John W. Bubbles and The Nicholas Brothers, it became integrated into the styles of famous white dancers like Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell and Gene Kelly. But by the time this picture was made, it had largely disappeared from the dance vernacular.
But not in Gregory Hines' world. Always passionate about the form, he had taken it to Broadway, earning Tony Award nominations in the late 1970s and early 1980s for the musicals Eubie!, Comin' Uptown and Sophisticated Ladies. He began to innovate and take the art to new places, improvising steps, sounds, rhythms and phrasing, rather like a jazz drummer, while maintaining an easy laid-back style. (He has a credit on Tap as "improvographer.")
He was a natural, then, to collaborate with director Nick Castle and producer Gary Adelson on their new project. Castle, the son of famed Hollywood choreographer and dance director Nick Castle Sr. (Stormy Weather, 1943; Royal Wedding, 1951), wanted to do a tap dance movie, and the two got Hines on board to develop it.
In addition to his vision, expertise and improvisational work, Hines brought in some of his personal and professional heroes, including LeTang to choreograph and Sammy Davis Jr. to play Little Mo, the old timer who guides Hines' character, newly released from prison, away from a life of crime and toward redemption through dance. In his last theatrical feature before his death, Davis was lauded by critic Roger Ebert: "Davis has never had a juicier role in a movie, and for once he isn't playing himself; he's playing the opposite of glitter and glitz, and his sincerity is believable."
The plot is little more than an excuse to showcase tap, and its shining moment comes during a challenge sequence featuring cameo performances by tap legends dancers Arthur Duncan, Bunny Briggs, Howard "Sandman" Sims, Steve Condos, Jimmy Slyde and Harold Nicholas of The Nicholas Brothers. Just as Hines pays tribute to his mentors in this film, he also introduces teenaged dancer Savion Glover, who would pick up the torch from Hines in later years and carry the art form to new expressions and innovations.
Principle photography began in March 1988. Tri-Star, the company that picked up the production, wanted the finished product ready for fall 1988 to fill an opening in its distribution schedule, according to a Hollywood Reporter column, but when executives saw the final cut, they realized the film had suffered from a rushed schedule and moved the release date to February 1989 to give Castle and Adelman more time to polish it. In any case, the film failed to find a widespread audience; it did not fare well at the box office and quickly disappeared.
Hines had another chance to bring his love of dance to a far wider audience. Shortly after the release of Tap, he created, hosted and performed in the PBS special Gregory Hines' Tap Dance in America, featuring many of the dancers seen in the movie. The main criticism leveled against it by the Los Angeles Times was that "It settles for being a one-shot special when it should be the pilot for a series."
Director: Nick Castle
Producer: Gary Adelson
Screenplay: Nick Castle
Cinematography: David Gribble
Editing: Patrick Kennedy
Production Design: Patricia Norris
Music: James Newton Howard
Cast: Gregory Hines (Max Washington), Sammy Davis Jr. (Little Mo), Suzzanne Douglas (Amy Simms), Savion Glover (Louis Simms), Terrence E. McNally (Bob Wythe), Joe Morton (Nicky)
By Rob Nixon
Tap -
Gregory Hines, 1946-2003
Born Gregory Oliver Hines on February 14, 1946, in New York City, he began taking dance lessons at age three and by the time he was six he and his brother Maurice were performing jazz tap at Harlem's Apollo Theater. By 1954, Hines was already on Broadway when he joined the cast of the Broadway musical The Girl in Pink Tights. He then spent the next 20 years perfecting the craft and art of tap dancing as he toured with his brother and father Maurice Sr. in a nightclub circuit act called "Hines, Hines and Dad", before he left in 1973 to form a rock band called Severance in Southern California.
Itching to put his dancing shoes on again, Hines made it back to New York a few years later and in 1978, scored his first Broadway success with Eubie, and earned a Tony nomination. With his vitality, charm and grace, Hines became one of the leading lights on Broadway for the next few years, as exemplified by two more Broadway hits in Comin' Uptown (1980) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), for which he received two more Tony nominations for his performances.
His charismatic presence made him natural for films, and he notched his first film role as a last minute replacement for Richard Pryor in Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981), where he immediately displayed his sharp comic abilities. Other solid roles followed over the next decade: an unorthodox coroner in Michael Wadleigh's urban thriller Wolfen (1981); a nightclub dancer in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984); an American defector to the Soviet Union in Taylor Hackford's overheated melodrama White Nights (1985); a wise-cracking cop in Peter Hyam's Running Scared (1986), and as the fast-talking con artist Goldy in Bill Duke's underrated A Rage in Harlem (1991).
He returned to Broadway in 1992 for his biggest triumph, a portrayal of Jelly Roll Morton, the famed jazz composer, in Jelly's Last Jam and earned a Tony Award in the process. A few more film appearances came in the '90's, most memorably in Forest Whitaker's Waiting to Exhale (1995), but Hines found a new lease on his career when he appeared on the small screen. He played a single father in a fine, if short-lived sitcom The Gregory Hines Show (1997-98); was popular as Ben Doucette, a love interest for Grace in the hugely popular show Will & Grace for two seasons (1999-2001); and received strong critical notice for his moving take as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the television film Bojangles (2001) that he also produced. His last televised appearance was in June 2002, when he co-hosted the Tony Awards with Bernadette Peters. In addition to his father and brother, he is survived by his fiancee Negrita Jayde; a daughter, Daria Hines; a son, Zach; a stepdaughter, Jessica Koslow; and a grandson.
by Michael T. Toole
Gregory Hines, 1946-2003
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States January 28, 1989
Released in United States on Video August 17, 1989
Released in United States Winter February 10, 1989
Began shooting March 22, 1988.
The film was originally a Lorimar production.
Released in United States January 28, 1989 (Premiered in Los Angeles January 28, 1989 at Katnap Dance Center.)
Released in United States Winter February 10, 1989
Released in United States on Video August 17, 1989