Taxi dancer  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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A taxi dancer is a paid dance partner in a partner dance. Taxi dancers are hired to dance with their customers on a dance-by-dance basis. When taxi dancing first appeared in taxi-dance halls during the early 20th century in the United States, male patrons would typically buy dance tickets for a small sum each.

Taxi dancers in popular culture

Since the 1920s when taxi dancing boomed in popularity, various films, songs and novels have been released reflecting the pastime, often using the taxi-dance hall as a setting or chronicling the lives of taxi dancers.

Movies

• Dance Hall (1929), pre-Code musical based on a Viña Delmar short story
• The Nickel-Hopper (1926), silent short
• Ten Cents a Dance (1931), starring Barbara Stanwyck; inspired by the popular song of the same name
• Let's Dance (1933), short featuring George Burns as a sailor and Gracie Allen as a dance hostess at Roseland Dance Hall
• The Taxi Dancer (1927), starring Joan Crawford and Owen Moore
• Asleep in the Feet (1933), Hal Roach comedy short starring Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts
• Dime-A-Dance (1937), featuring Al Christie and Imogene Coca
• Sweet Charity (1969), musical-comedy starring Shirley MacLaine; directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse
• Child of Manhattan (1937), based on a play by Preston Sturges
• Killer's Kiss (1955), a film by Stanley Kubrick, various scenes take place in a taxi-dance hall
• The Rat Race (1960), starring Debbie Reynolds as a struggling taxi dancer, based on a play by Garson Kanin
• A League of Their Own (1992), the character played by Madonna, "All the Way" Mae Mordabito, mentions that if the league folds she won't go back to taxi dancing and have guys sweat gin on her for ten cents a dance
• The White Countess (2005), directed by James Ivory, tells the story of a Russian countess (Natasha Richardson) who works as a taxi dancer in Shanghai in 1930s to support her family of White émigrés
• Deadline at Dawn (1946), about a New York dime-a-dance girl helping to clear a sailor framed for murder
• Lured (1947), a noir film starring Lucille Ball as a New York taxi dancer in London who works undercover to solve a string of murders

Books

• The Taxi Dancer by Robert Terry Shannon (New York: Edward J. Clade, 1931; A. L. Burt, 1931)
• The Confessions of a Taxi Dancer by Anonymous (Detroit: Johnson Smith & Co., 1938) [booklet, 38 pp.]
• Taxi Dancers by Eve Linkletter (Fresno, CA: Fabian Books, 1959) (adult paperback)
• Crosstown by John Held, Jr. (New York: Dell Books, 1951), "Showgirl Mazie's rise from Taxi-Dancer to Broadway star"
• The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1939)
• Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher (New York: Bloombury, 2010)
• The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012), features a character who was formerly a taxi dancer
• A Girl Like You: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel by Michelle Cox (Berkeley, CA: She Writes Press, 2016)

Songs

• "Ten Cents a Dance" (1930), music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart
• "Taxi War Dance" (1939), jazz instrumental by Count Basie featuring Lester Young
• "Dime a Dance" (1972), recorded by Vicki Lawrence; the flip-side of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", from the album of the same name
• "Aja" (1977), music and lyrics by Steely Dan (refers to "dime dancing")
• "Taxi Dancer" (1979), music and lyrics by John Mellencamp.
• "Taxi Dancer" (2013) by the band Dengue Fever
• "Taxi Dancing" (1984), "Hard to Hold" movie soundtrack, by Rick Springfield, featuring Randy Crawford

Musical Theater

• Simple Simon (1930), music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, book by Guy Bolton; song "Ten Cents a Dance," sung by Ruth Etting, was introduced in this show
• Sweet Charity (1966), music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon

Television

• Big Sky, the character Ronald reveals he is a taxi dancer.
• L.A. Law features an episode (Season 5, Episode 7) where two of the characters (Benny and Murray) visit a taxi dance hall in Los Angeles during 1990.
• Laverne & Shirley has an episode ("Call Me a Taxi", 1977) where the two are laid off and take jobs as taxi dancers.
• In The Waltons episode "The Achievement" (Season 5, Episode 25), John-Boy travels to New York to check on his book manuscript, and finds his friend Daisy working as a taxi dancer.
• Cold Case season 5 World End murder victim was a taxi dancer.
• Psych season 6 episode "Autopsy Turvy" features a taxi dance hall and dancers who provide clues regarding a murder.

See also

• Ballroom dance
• Lap dance
• Private Dancer (Tina Turner song)
• Taxi dance hall