Lindy Hop dancer was 98 – The Hollywood Reporter

Jean Veloz, the innovative Lindy Hop dancer who dazzled in swing fever and other Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, died. She was 98 years old.

Veloz died on Sunday at her Los Angeles home, her friend, agent and manager Rusty Frank said. The Hollywood Reporter. Frank co-produced the 2010 event A tribute to the movie Grooviewhich celebrated Veloz and his contribution to dance.

“Jean pioneered a style of swing dancing that was admired around the world,” Frank said. “It was silky smooth and contrasted sharply with the more jitterbug style that was prevalent in the 1930s-40s.”

Generations of dancers have idolized her.

At MGM swing fever (1943), Veloz swirled with military men played by Lennie Smith and Don Gallagher in the high-octane number “One Girl and Two Boys”, accompanied by Kay Kyser’s band and sandwiched between Marilyn Maxwell’s vocals .

She also did the jitterbug in Where are your kids? (1943), with Jackie Cooper; danced with Bob Ashley in Jive Junction (1943), with Dickie Moore; teamed up with rug cutter/cat hep Arthur Walsh in the 10-minute MGM swing short movie groove (1944); and dated Dean Collins in The horn rings at midnight (1945), featuring trumpeter Jack Benny.

After appearing in the chorus line of productions choreographed by Nick Castle in 1946 at the El Rancho Vegas hotel, she began training with Frank Veloz at one of the schools he ran with his wife, Yolanda. (The famous dancing couple appeared in films including the 1942 one Yankees pride.)

Soon, she will associate with him. They taught Anthony Dexter the tango for the title role in Valentino (1951) and were choreographers on latin lovers (1953), with Lana Turner, Rita Moreno and Ricardo Montalban, before getting married in 1963.

Jean Grinnell Phelps was born on March 1, 1924 in Los Angeles. She and her brothers, Robert and Raymond, often practiced Lindy Hop with their friends in the living room of the house. Later, she and Ray won a jitterbug contest in Santa Maria, California, in a competition with over 500 other dancers.

Teaming up with Gene Halverson, she won a dance contest at Hollywood Legion Stadium, and victory came with a Screen Actors Guild card and a role in swing fever. In 1947, she married Harold “Babe” Davi, but they divorced.

As Jean Davi, she and Frank Veloz starred in a 1956-57 LA game show called Ladies ratedoing tango, waltz, rumba, samba, swing and foxtrot while teaching these dances live on TV.

They later helped choreographer Marge Champion on the acclaimed 1975 CBS TV movie. Stardust Ballroom Queenwith Maureen Stapleton and Charles Durning.

She retired when her husband died in 1981, but filming a swing documentary in 1992 brought her back to performing. She was inducted into the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame in 1996.

Veloz was a dance teacher on ABC the bachelorette in 2016 and danced to “One Girl and Two Boys” a year later on NBC on the show hosted by Steve Harvey Little Big Shots: Forever Young. At 95, she hopped on “Love Me or Leave Me.”

Veloz has made countless appearances over the years as a special guest artist at dance festivals around the world, most recently in February 2020 at Rock That Swing in Germany.

Survivors include his niece, Stacey. Her late stepdaughter, Yolanda, was married to actor Bernie Kopell from 1974 until their divorce in 1995.

“Every moment spent with Jean was a lesson in how to live a life,” said Frank, who first met Veloz in 1997. “His positive attitude was unparalleled, his love of people immense.”