Harriet Hoctor
Encyclopedia
Harriet Hoctor was a ballerina
, dancer, actress and instructor from Hoosick Falls, New York
. Composer George Gershwin
composed a symphonic orchestral piece (Hoctor's Ballet
) specifically for Hoctor in the film Shall We Dance (1937).
and placed under the tutelage of Russian ballet
master Louis H. Chalif of the Normal School of Dancing. In 1930 Hoctor lived with Kearney in a house on Murray Hill, Manhattan
, just around the corner from the home of J. Pierpont Morgan.
By the time she was sixteen, Hoctor was touring in vaudeville
on the same bill as the Duncan Sisters
. She was asked to join their act
and became a key player in their Topsy and Eva show presented on Broadway
. Hoctor appeared in a doll ballet and was informed that Florenz Ziegfeld
was offering her a trial part in his production of The Three Musketeers
(1928). By 1929, she was given the first opportunity to dance during a ballet staging of George Gershwin
's An American in Paris
.
of Earl Carroll
in 1932 after a year of performing in England
, at the London Hippodrome
tapping up and down an escalator en pointe
.http://www.the-perfect-pointe.com/TapEnPointe.html At the request of Ziegfeld she did not sign a contract to remain abroad. Hoctor would appear on the same billing as such comedians as Jack Benny
, and George and Gracie Allen, and George Jessel
.
movies. She appeared as herself in The Great Ziegfeld
(1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Billy Rose
's Casa Manana Revue
(1938). Shall We Dance featured Fred Astaire
, Ginger Rogers
, and Edward Everett Horton
, and Hoctor danced with Astaire.
in Boston, Massachusetts in 1945. She commuted to New York for shows. She continued teaching in Boston until she retired in 1974. Many of her students achieved success in their careers. She designed her own costumes. Hoctor enjoyed ping pong
as a hobby. As a trained dancer, she avoided tennis, golf, swimming, and ice skating—activities that build up the shoulders, produce arm and wrist muscles, and thicken the ankles.
.
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
, dancer, actress and instructor from Hoosick Falls, New York
Hoosick Falls, New York
Hoosick Falls is a village in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 3,182 at the 2010 census, a decline of 254 since 2000. During its peak around 1900, the village had a population of about 7,000...
. Composer George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
composed a symphonic orchestral piece (Hoctor's Ballet
Hoctor's Ballet
Hoctor's Ballet is a long movement by George Gershwin for full orchestra written in 1937, originally from the score for Shall We Dance. Performance time runs about 15 minutes....
) specifically for Hoctor in the film Shall We Dance (1937).
Family
Born to Timothy Hoctor and Elizabeth Kearny, Harriet Hoctor was one of four children, the others being Martin Francis ("Frank"), John, and Eloise. Harriet Hoctor never married.Youth dancer
Hoctor's maternal aunt, Annie Kearney, was a social secretary to a wealthy woman in Hoosick Falls who took an interest in young Harriet. At the age of twelve she was sent to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and placed under the tutelage of Russian ballet
Russian ballet
Russian ballet is a form of ballet characteristic of or originating from Russia. In the early 19th century, the theaters were opened up to anyone who could afford a ticket. There was a seating section called a rayok, or 'paradise gallery', that consisted of simple wooden benches...
master Louis H. Chalif of the Normal School of Dancing. In 1930 Hoctor lived with Kearney in a house on Murray Hill, Manhattan
Murray Hill, Manhattan
Murray Hill is a Midtown Manhattan neighborhood in New York City, USA. Around 1987 many real estate promoters of the neighborhood and newer residents described the boundaries as within East 34th Street, East 42nd Street, Madison Avenue, and the East River; in 1999, Frank P...
, just around the corner from the home of J. Pierpont Morgan.
By the time she was sixteen, Hoctor was touring in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
on the same bill as the Duncan Sisters
Duncan Sisters
The Duncan Sisters were a vaudeville duo who became popular in the 1920s with their act Topsy and Eva.-Early career:Rosetta and Vivian Duncan were born in Los Angeles, California, the daughters of a violinist turned salesman...
. She was asked to join their act
Act
Act may mean:* Act/Power is a philosophical notion defined by Aristotle and known as entelechy* Act , a British band* Act , a document recording the legality of a transaction or contract...
and became a key player in their Topsy and Eva show presented on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. Hoctor appeared in a doll ballet and was informed that Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
was offering her a trial part in his production of The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers (musical)
The Three Musketeers is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire, lyrics by Clifford Grey and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Rudolf Friml. It is based on the classic 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, père....
(1928). By 1929, she was given the first opportunity to dance during a ballet staging of George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's An American in Paris
An American in Paris
An American in Paris is a symphonic tone poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s. It is one of Gershwin's best-known compositions.Gershwin composed the piece...
.
Stage career
She appeared in the Vanities revueRevue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
of Earl Carroll
Earl Carroll
Earl Carroll was an American theatrical producer, director, songwriter and composer born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-Career:...
in 1932 after a year of performing in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, at the London Hippodrome
Hippodrome, London
The Hippodrome is a building on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Leicester Square in the City of Westminster, London. The name was used for many different theatres and music halls, of which the London Hippodrome is one of only a few survivors...
tapping up and down an escalator en pointe
En pointe
En pointe means "on the tip" and is a part of classical ballet technique, usually practised using specially reinforced shoes called pointe shoes or toe shoes. The technique developed from the desire for dancers to appear weightless and sylph-like and has evolved to enable dancers to dance on the...
.http://www.the-perfect-pointe.com/TapEnPointe.html At the request of Ziegfeld she did not sign a contract to remain abroad. Hoctor would appear on the same billing as such comedians as Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, and George and Gracie Allen, and George Jessel
George Jessel (actor)
George Albert Jessel was an American illustrated song "model," actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies...
.
Movies
In the late 1930s, she was a dancer in a number of HollywoodHollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
movies. She appeared as herself in The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
(1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
's Casa Manana Revue
Casa Mañana
Casa Mañana Theatre, in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, is located in the Fort Worth Cultural District and is known as the "House of Tomorrow." Originally an outdoor amphitheater, Casa opened in 1936 as the part of the official Texas Centennial Celebration....
(1938). Shall We Dance featured Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
, and Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
, and Hoctor danced with Astaire.
Instructor
Hoctor joined Billy Rose Productions in 1940, dancing and choreographing at Rose's night club, The Diamond Horseshoe. Hoctor opened her own dance schoolDance studio
A dance studio is a space in which dancers learn or rehearse. The term is typically used to describe a space that has either been built or equipped for the purpose....
in Boston, Massachusetts in 1945. She commuted to New York for shows. She continued teaching in Boston until she retired in 1974. Many of her students achieved success in their careers. She designed her own costumes. Hoctor enjoyed ping pong
Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
as a hobby. As a trained dancer, she avoided tennis, golf, swimming, and ice skating—activities that build up the shoulders, produce arm and wrist muscles, and thicken the ankles.
Remembered
Harriet Hoctor died in Arlington, Virginia, at the Northern Virginia Doctor's Hospital, in 1977, aged 71. Her death came after an extended illness. She was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in her native Hoosick Falls following a Mass of Christian Burial at the Church of the Immaculate Conception.Legacy
The summer she died, playwright Frank Wirmusky cast This Is Your Life, Hoosick Falls. The play transformed one hundred and fifty years of the town's history into an hour long theatrical performance. Actors depicted twelve Hoosick Falls men and women from the past who made important contributions in various endeavors. One of those portrayed was Hoctor. Actress Kelly Thompson donned beads prior to appearing on stage as Hoctor, looking like a 1920s era flapperFlapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
.
Sources
- Bennington Banner, Obituary, June 11, 1977, p. 2
- Bennington Banner, "In Falls, a proud past, a promising future", August 5, 1977, p. 6
- Bismarck TribuneBismarck TribuneThe Bismarck Tribune is a daily newspaper printed in Bismarck, North Dakota. The Tribune is the primary daily newspaper for south-central and southwest North Dakota. Its average daily circulation is 31,081 on Sundays and 27,620 on weekdays. One notable reporter for the paper was Mark H...
, "Romantic Story of the Belle From Hoosick Falls", August 18, 1930, p. 6 - Syracuse Herald, "Foreign Nations Which Once Sent Stars To US Now Import Our Dancers", August 12, 1932, p. 14
- Harriet Hoctor Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
External links
- Harriet Hoctor at Dance History Archive