THE LONDON SWING CATS HOLLYWOOD STYLE LINDY HOP? Home About Us Hollywood Style? Classes Events Calendar Pics/Video Swing Cat Crew Links   Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan "Springtime in the Rockies" 1942  Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan "Buck Privates" 1941  Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan "Ride 'Em Cowboy" 1942 Martha Raye and Dean Collins "Hellzapoppin' 1941 Jewel McGowan & Dean Collins in the Soundie Jazzy Joe JIVE TALKIN' You may be able to dance the dance and walk the walk but can you talk the talk? A guide to slingin' the lingo ALLIGATOR - A swing fan. ARMSTRONGS - High pitched notes, from Loius Armstrong's playing. BELLY WARMER - Necktie CAT - A guy, also "Kitten" a girl. COPASETIC - The tops DEAD HOOFER - Bad dancer FRAME - Body / Physique GABRIELS - Horn players GASSER - Sensational GROUND GRIPPERS - New Shoes HEP - More than just "to know" also understand/feel . As in "Hep Cat", "Hep to the Groove" etc. ICKY - A non jitterbug, a stupid person. JELLY - Free KILLER DILLER - A thriller KNOCK - to give/throw, as in "Knock me a Kiss". LID - Hat NAILS - Cigarettes ONE ON THE CITY - A glass of tap water PULLEYS - Suspenders (US), Braces (UK) REET - Fine RIGHTEOUS - the best ROCK'N'ROLL - Originally a euphemism for sex as in "I'm going to rock and roll you all night long". RUG CUTTER - A great dancer. Also "to cut a rug" - to dance. Originates from house parties when the carpets would be taken up to create a dance floor. SEND - to move a person, emotionally SHARP - Smart, as in a sharp suit. SQUARE - The opposite of a hep cat, someone who doesn't know. Originally a square was someone who had just arrived from the country to the big city. They could only square dance. SOLID - Great STOMPERS - Shoes TEA - Marijuana TOGGED TO THE BRICKS - Dressed in your finest clothes TWISTER TO THE SLAMMER - Key to the door. The above were culled from a variety of different websites and sources. This is by no means an exhaustive list and there are many many more. If you have any suggestions to add then please send us an email (Don't make them up - I know it's tempting!) Hollywood Swing Hollywood Swing is a style of Lindy Hop from Los Angeles in the 1940s. The dance has a variety of different names - Smooth Style Lindy; L.A. Style; Dean Collins' Style (see below), but L.A. teachers and performers, Erik Robison and Sylvia Skylar coined the term “Hollywood Style” which reflects both the geographic origins of the dance and also it’s appearance in so many movies. Hollywood Swing is not only the absolutely authentic jitterbug style, it is also the original rock ‘n’ roll jive as danced in the classic R ’n’ R films of the 1950s. THIS IS THE REAL DEAL! Robert Austin back in 1992 I’d been dancing for about five years starting first with Lindy Hop and then Modern Jive, which I then went on to teach. "Have you seen "Hellzapoppin’?" asked a friend. No I hadn’t and a few days later he came round with a tape. He fast forwarded straight to "that" scene with Whitey’s Lindy Hopper’s and Frankie Manning at his peak - high speed dancing and incredible aerials. I was blown away, who hasn’t been? He then showed me another clip, Martha Raye singing "Watch the Birdie" - great scene, great song. As she strolls through the set a couple are dancing, the thin white guy leaves his partner, takes Martha Raye’s hand and they begin to dance. It is probably only 8 bars of music, nothing flash, no death defying aerials but smooth, casual & laid back. The scene doesn’t look choreographed, there’s even a mistake at the end. "Who’s that guy?" I ask "I love the Frankie Manning stuff but that’s how I want to dance." "Oh that’s no-one, just some boogie woogie dancer." That "no-one" I found out years later was Dean Collins. Who was Dean Collins? Dean Collins is undoubtedly the most filmed Lindy Hopper in history with over 30 movie and short credits to his name. Dean Collins was born in Ohio in 1917 and grew up in New Jersey. As a teenager he hung out in the Harlem clubs where he learnt Lindy Hop and at the age of 18 (1935) was "New Yorker Magazine’s" dancer of the year. He reputedly entered the Harvest Moon Ball twice in the mid-thirties and although not winning was placed highly on both occasions In the late 1930s he moved to Los Angeles. This period was the height of the Jitterbug craze in America and many of the studios wished to cash in either directly through swing based musicals or indirectly by including swing dance scenes within other genres. Dean Collins was in the right place at the right time and a simple extras job for RKO in 1939 turned him into a choreographer for the film "Let’s Make Music" with the Bob Crosby Orchestra. From then on Dean Collins became a regular in many of the movies throughout the 1940s. Sometimes, he is literally a blur dancing in the background adding dancehall authenticity as in "Talk of the Town" (Cary Grant 1942) or is given a higher profile like when he dances to the Andrews Sisters in "Buck Privates" (Abbot and Costello, 1941). Alongside the film credits he also appeared in a number of "soundies", the forerunners of the modern pop video, including the classic "Chool Song" and "Tabby the Cat". To mention Dean Collins without reference to his dance partner of 11 years, Jewel McGowan would be travesty. Jewel’s dancing is a sheer pleasure to watch and I have seen no other dancer who has been able to "work that skirt" in the way she did. Dean and Jewel were undoubtedly the Fred and Ginger of Lindy Hop In the late 1930s, Lindy Hop was not a popular dance in Southern California, dancers preferred Balboa or Shag (Collegiate). Dean Collins is credited with bringing the Lindy from the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York to the The Palladium on Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles. Many of the LA based dancers adopted what has become known as the Dean Collins' style. Dancers in the Pete Smith Speciality "Groovy Moovie" (1941) show this influence executing smooth slotted whips as opposed to the more circular swing outs which had characterised "Savoy Style." Dean Collins also taught a large number of people the dance including many celebrities including Shirley Temple, Joan Crawford and Caesar Romero and even Arthur Murray. He continued to teach throughout his life and Jonathan Bixby and Sylvia Sykes, more recent swing dance champions from Santa Barbara learnt, directly from him. It is because of Dean Collins and his contemporaries in Los Angeles that a whole generation of dancers, via the medium of film, jitterbugged across the world. In The Movies The 1940s Always A Bridesmaid 1943 Dancers: Patty Andrews, Dean Collins Buck Privates 1941 Abbott & Costello, Andrews Sisters Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Gene "Shadow" Cole, Gil Fernandez, Connie Wydel The Canterville Ghost 1944 Charles Laughton, Margaret O'Brien, Robert Young Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan The Chool Song (Soundie) Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan Dance Hall 1941 Carole Landis, Cesar Romero Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Connie Wydel Four Jills In A Jeep 1944 Kay Francis, Martha Rae, Carol Landis,  Mitzi Mayfair Dancers: Roy Damron, Freda Angela Wyckoff George White's Scandals of 1945 Jack Haley, Gene Krupa and his Orchestra Dancers: Dean Collins Ghost Catchers 1944 Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson Dancers: Johnny & Venna Archer, Bob Ashley, Dean Collins, Gil Fernandez, Lenny Smith, Betty Stoy, Irene Thomas, Mike Tremini Hellzapoppin' 1941 Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Martha Rae Dancers: Dean Collins, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers with Frankie Manning and Norma Miller Hollywood Canteen 1944 Bette Davis, John Garfield and many more! Dancers: Johnny Archer, Gil Fernandez, Jack Mattis The Horn Blows At Midnight 1945 Jack Benny, Alexis Smith. Dancers: Johnny Archer, Dean Collins, Jeanne Phelps (Veloz) Jive Junction 1943 Coral Ashley, Beverly Boyd Dancers: Johnny Archer, Bob Ashley, Jeanne Phelps (Veloz) Junior Prom 1946 Freddy Stewart, June Preisser Dancers: Freda Angela Wyckoff, Johnny Archer, Dean Collins, Maxie Dorf, Gil Fernandez, Alice Scott, Lenny Smith, Lou Southern Let's Make Music 1940 Bob Crosby and his Orchestra Dancer: Dean Collins (Partner Unknown) Playmates 1941 Kay Kyser, Lupe Velez Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan The Powers Girl 1942 George Murphy, Anne Shirley, Benny Goodman and his Orchestra Dancers: Bob Ashley, Irene Thomas, Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan Ride 'Em Cowboy 1942 Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, Ella Fitzgerald Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan Springtime In The Rockies 1942 Betty Grable, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Harry James and his Orchestra Dancers: Dean Collins & Jewel McGowan Stage Door Canteen 1943 Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Ethel Waters Dancers: Irene Thomas, Arthur Walsh Swing Fever 1944 Kay Kyser, Marilyn Maxwell, William Gargan, Lena Horne Dancers: Lenny Smith, Jeanne Phelps/Veloz The Talk Of The Town 1942 Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman Dancers: Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Gil Fernandez They All Kissed The Bride 1942 Joan Crawford Dancers: Dean Collins, Connie Wydel Till The End Of Time 1946 Dorothy McGuire, Guy Madison, Robert Mitchum Choreographed by Dean Collins Dancers: Guy Madison, Jean Porter, Lenny Smith Young Ideas 1943 Mary Astor, Richard Carlson Dancer: Dean Collins The 1950s Benny Goodman Story 1955 Steve Allen, Donna Reed Dancers: Gil & Nikki Brady, Pat Eggar Havenhill, Darlene Greminger Lind Carnival Rock 1957 Susan Cabot, Dick Miller Dancers: Freda Angela Wyckoff, Gil Brady Don't Knock The Rock 1956 Bill Haley and His Comets Dancers: Gil & Nikki Brady, Freda Angela Wyckoff The Girl Can't Help It 1956 Tom Ewell, Jayne Mansfield Dancers: Gil & Nikki Brady, Lenny Smith Juke Box Rhythm 1959 Jo Morrow, Jack Jones Dancers: Gil Brady, Nikki Brady, Lenny Smith, Freda Angela Wyckoff Living It Up 1954 Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis; Dancers: Jack Carey, Loraine Edwards, Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Roy Damron, Danny Donahoe, Freda Angela Wyckoff, Pat Eggar Havenhill, Sheila O'Hare, Lenny Smith Rock Around The Clock 1956 Bill Haley and His Comets Freda Angela Wyckoff, George Christopherson, Jack Carey, Gil & Nikki Brady Running Wild 1955 William Campbell, Mamie Van Doren, Keenan Wynn, Walter Coy Dancers: Gil & Nikki Brady That Certain Feeling 1956 Bob Hope, Eva Marie Saint, George Sanders, Pearl Bailey Dancers: Gil & Nikki Brady Untamed Youth1957 Mamie Van Doren, Lori Nelson Dancers: Lenny Smith, Freda Angela Wyckoff This listing is by no means complete and I would welcome any additional info on other films or indeed any corrections.