Gregory Hines

The Sound of Metal Tap Shoes

Gregory Hines treated the floor as a percussion instrument, not just a surface to stand on. His shoes had specially modified metal plates so the sound was drier, almost like a slap against the wood.

He started performing at age two. By five, he was already touring with his brother Maurice in a dance act called Hines, Hines and Dad. That childhood spent in hotels and dressing rooms in the 1950s permanently cured him of any fear of the camera or the audience.

He was commanding the stage before he could read properly.

In 1981, he starred in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. That role earned him a Tony nomination and allowed him to demand star salaries in his next contracts. But his ambitions went beyond the theater stage, and he sought a place in the mainstream films of the major studios.

A Clash with Hollywood

Francis Ford Coppola called him in 1984 to join The Cotton Club. Filming was utter chaos, with a shifting budget and constant script changes. Hines had to improvise much of his dialogue and dance steps because the director didn't know how to finish the scenes in the film.

And the gamble paid off.

His big moment of popularity came in 1985 with White Nights. The film staged an aesthetic duel between two opposing worlds. Hines represented street tap, while Mikhail Baryshnikov represented rigid classical ballet. During filming in 1985, Hines insisted that the microphones be placed at floor level to capture every tap of the heel without post-production tricks.

In 1986, he starred alongside Billy Crystal in the action comedy Running Scared. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was looking for a pairing that would break the mold of the cop movies of the era. It was an unexpected box office hit, grossing 38 million dollars in the United States alone.

But massive success never pulled him away from his technical roots.

In 1989, he starred in Tap, a personal project in which he paid tribute to the old masters of the genre who were fading into obscurity. The film featured cameos from dance legends who were already over seventy years old. It was his way of ensuring the style would not die out with the rise of electronic music.

A Refuge on the Small Screen

He attempted to make the leap to directing in 1994 with a film titled Bleeding Hearts. It was a crime drama that went unnoticed by critics and audiences alike. That commercial failure forced him to rethink his position in the industry and seek refuge in television.

In 1997, he got his own series titled The Gregory Hines Show. CBS produced fifteen episodes but decided to cancel it due to low ratings. That period was difficult because big-budget films stopped sending him interesting scripts.

He never stopped rehearsing his daily dance routines.

In 1999, he took a supporting role in the hit series Will & Grace, playing the lawyer Ben Doucette. He appeared in seven episodes between 1999 and 2000. His last on-screen appearance was in the TV movie The Red Sneakers in 2002.

Gregory Hines died of liver cancer on August 9, 2003, in Los Angeles, at the age of 57. He was buried in the Saint Volodymyr Cemetery in Ontario.