Sylvia Lewis

For those who may have grown up in the days when there were a limited number of tv channels, you may have experienced a moment watching and asked yourself: Who is that woman? And you could not find the answer. In the halcyon days of Hollywood, supporting players, particularly the Chorines, the Showgirls, the Glamour Girls, the "Specialty" Dancers, were rarely credited. But to many viewers, even if you did not know these performers by name, you could not forget them.

And sometimes you might have not realized watching radically different performances that they were actually performed by the same person. It's not readily obvious to think the scantily-clad dancer John Wayne ogled in The Conqueror was also "Henrietta Hipslide" in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts. But since the internet it has became possible to detect a pattern: The dancer in The Ladies Man is the same dancer in The Three Stooges' Bedlam in Paradise and yes, the same one as in The Conqueror and The Lieutenant. How can that be? And there she is again: dancing behind Jane Russell in Son of Paleface and Rosemary Clooney in Red Garters. The same performer? How can that be? And who the heck is that woman anyway?

And the answer is: Sylvia Lewis. One of the greatest dancers in the history of Hollywood, a woman of such profound talent & beauty, trained in classical ballet, mastering all forms of popular dance for whatever the situation, ultimately a choreographer who helped establish the highest levels of popular dance as witnessed by millions of viewers in the 20th century, not only recorded on screen and tv, but experienced live in nightclubs and theater shows.

Who is Sylvia? On these pages, you shall discover...