Tommy Rall
Encyclopedia
Thomas Edward "Tommy" Rall (b. December 27, 1929, Kansas City, Missouri
) is an American ballet dancer, tap dancer and acrobatic dancer who was a prominent featured player in 1950s musical comedies. He later became a successful opera
tic tenor
in the 1960s, making appearances with the Opera Company of Boston
, the New York City Opera
, and the American National Opera Company.
Rall was raised in Seattle. As a child he had a crossed eye which made it hard for him to read books, so his mother enrolled him in dancing classes. In his early years he performed a dance and acrobatic vaudeville
act in Seattle theaters, and attempted small acting roles.
His family moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s, and Rall began to appear in small movie roles. His first film appearance was a short MGM film called Vendetta. He began taking tap dancing lessons and became a member of the jitterbugging Jivin’ Jacks and Jills at Universal Studios
.
Rall joined Donald O'Connor
, Peggy Ryan
and Shirley Mills
in several light wartime Andrews Sisters vehicles including Give Out Sisters, Get Hep to Love
, Mister Big, and others. He also appeared in the films The North Star
and Song of Russia
.
Rall took ballet lessons and danced in classical and Broadway
stages (Milk and Honey
, Call Me Madam
and Cry for Us All
). He is best-known for his acrobatic dancing in several classic musical films of the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Invitation to the Dance
, Merry Andrew
and My Sister Eileen
.
Rall's film career waned as movie musicals went into decline. He had a role in the movie Funny Girl
, as "The Prince" in a spoof of the ballet
Swan Lake
. On Broadway
he danced to considerable acclaim as "Johnny" in Marc Blitzstein
and Joseph Stein
's 1959 musical, Juno
(based on Sean O'Casey
's play Juno and the Paycock
).
. He is now married to the former Karel Shimoff (b. 1944); they have two children.
In 2007, a dance instructor by the name of Fredric Brame was found to have been posing as Tommy Rall since the late 1960s. His biographies, resumes, and playbills all support that Brame was Fredric Brame aka Tommy Rall by the credits listed. When Rall found out about the masquerade decades later, through a friend of his cousin, he contacted the Montgomery County Sheriff's office. No legal action was taken against Brame since he technically didn't commit a crime. Rall only wanted Brame to stop taking credit for his work and if he continued or did it again a lawsuit would be filed.
Short Subjects:
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
) is an American ballet dancer, tap dancer and acrobatic dancer who was a prominent featured player in 1950s musical comedies. He later became a successful opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
in the 1960s, making appearances with the Opera Company of Boston
Opera Company of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active during the late 1950s through the early 1990s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group. At one time, the touring arm of the...
, the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, and the American National Opera Company.
Rall was raised in Seattle. As a child he had a crossed eye which made it hard for him to read books, so his mother enrolled him in dancing classes. In his early years he performed a dance and acrobatic 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...
act in Seattle theaters, and attempted small acting roles.
His family moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s, and Rall began to appear in small movie roles. His first film appearance was a short MGM film called Vendetta. He began taking tap dancing lessons and became a member of the jitterbugging Jivin’ Jacks and Jills at Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
.
Rall joined Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
, Peggy Ryan
Peggy Ryan
Margaret O'Rene "Peggy" Ryan was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O'Connor and Gloria Jean....
and Shirley Mills
Shirley Mills
Shirley Olivia Mills was an American actress. Mills' most notable role was in the 1938 film Child Bride, made when she was only twelve years old...
in several light wartime Andrews Sisters vehicles including Give Out Sisters, Get Hep to Love
Get Hep to Love
Get Hep to Love is a 1942 musical film starring Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige and Peggy Ryan. The film was directed by Charles Lamont.-Plot:...
, Mister Big, and others. He also appeared in the films The North Star
The North Star (1943 film)
The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
and Song of Russia
Song of Russia
Song of Russia is a 1944 American war film made and distributed by MGM Studios. The picture was credited as being directed by Gregory Ratoff, though Ratoff collapsed near the end of the five-month production, and was replaced by László Benedek, who completed principal photography; the credited...
.
Rall took ballet lessons and danced in classical and 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...
stages (Milk and Honey
Milk and Honey (musical)
Milk and Honey is a musical with a book by Don Appell and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The story centers on a busload of lonely American widows hoping to catch husbands while touring Israel and is set against the background of the country's fight for recognition as an independent nation...
, Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.A satire on politics and foreign affairs that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed...
and Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All is a musical with a book by William Alfred and Albert Marre, lyrics by Alfred and Phyllis Robinson, and music by Mitch Leigh. In response to poor advance sales, the title was...
). He is best-known for his acrobatic dancing in several classic musical films of the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Invitation to the Dance
Invitation to the Dance (film)
Invitation to the Dance is a 1956 anthology film consisting of three distinct stories, all starring and directed by Gene Kelly.The film is unusual in that it has no spoken dialogue, with the characters performing their roles entirely through dance and mime...
, Merry Andrew
Merry Andrew (film)
Merry Andrew is a 1958 American musical film directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart and I.A.L. Diamond is based on the short story "The Romance of Henry Menafee" by Paul Gallico...
and My Sister Eileen
My Sister Eileen (1955 film)
My Sister Eileen is a 1955 American CinemaScope musical film directed by Richard Quine. It stars Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon....
.
Rall's film career waned as movie musicals went into decline. He had a role in the movie Funny Girl
Funny Girl (film)
Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title...
, as "The Prince" in a spoof of the ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
. 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...
he danced to considerable acclaim as "Johnny" in Marc Blitzstein
Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...
and Joseph Stein
Joseph Stein
Joseph Stein was an American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.-Biography:...
's 1959 musical, Juno
Juno (musical)
Juno is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein, based closely on the 1924 play Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey. The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, on March 9, 1959.Despite light moments, the musical,...
(based on Sean O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
's play Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924...
).
Personal life
Rall was briefly married to his Juno co-star, Monte AmundsenMonte Amundsen
Monte Amundsen was an American opera and musical singer who appeared on Broadway in Marc Blitzstein's musical Juno in 1959.-Biography:...
. He is now married to the former Karel Shimoff (b. 1944); they have two children.
In 2007, a dance instructor by the name of Fredric Brame was found to have been posing as Tommy Rall since the late 1960s. His biographies, resumes, and playbills all support that Brame was Fredric Brame aka Tommy Rall by the credits listed. When Rall found out about the masquerade decades later, through a friend of his cousin, he contacted the Montgomery County Sheriff's office. No legal action was taken against Brame since he technically didn't commit a crime. Rall only wanted Brame to stop taking credit for his work and if he continued or did it again a lawsuit would be filed.
Filmography
Features:- What's Cookin'?What's Cookin'?What's Cookin'? is a 1942 American musical film starring The Andrews Sisters, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige and Gloria Jean. The film was directed by Edward F. Cline and is based on the story Wake Up and Dream written by Edgar Allan Woolf.-Plot:...
(19421942 in filmThe year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
) - Private BuckarooPrivate BuckarooPrivate Buckaroo is a 1942 American Musical film directed by Edward F. Cline and starring The Andrews Sisters, Dick Foran, Harry James, Shemp Howard, Joe E...
(1942) - Give Out, Sisters (1942)
- Get Hep to LoveGet Hep to LoveGet Hep to Love is a 1942 musical film starring Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige and Peggy Ryan. The film was directed by Charles Lamont.-Plot:...
(1942) - It Comes Up Love (19431943 in filmThe year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
) - Always a Bridesmaid (1943)
- The North StarThe North Star (1943 film)The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
(1943) - Song of RussiaSong of RussiaSong of Russia is a 1944 American war film made and distributed by MGM Studios. The picture was credited as being directed by Gregory Ratoff, though Ratoff collapsed near the end of the five-month production, and was replaced by László Benedek, who completed principal photography; the credited...
(19441944 in filmThe year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....
) - Kiss Me Kate (19531953 in filmThe year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...
) - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (19541954 in filmThe year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda...
) - My Sister EileenMy Sister Eileen (1955 film)My Sister Eileen is a 1955 American CinemaScope musical film directed by Richard Quine. It stars Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon....
(19551955 in filmThe year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
) - The Second Greatest Sex (1955)
- World in My Corner (19561956 in filmThe year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...
) - Invitation to the DanceInvitation to the Dance (film)Invitation to the Dance is a 1956 anthology film consisting of three distinct stories, all starring and directed by Gene Kelly.The film is unusual in that it has no spoken dialogue, with the characters performing their roles entirely through dance and mime...
(1956) - Walk the Proud LandWalk the Proud LandWalk the Proud Land is a 1956 Western Technicolor CinemaScope film directed by Jesse Hibbs, starring Audie Murphy and future Academy Award winner Anne Bancroft. It was filmed at Old Tucson.-Plot:...
(1956) - Merry AndrewMerry Andrew (film)Merry Andrew is a 1958 American musical film directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart and I.A.L. Diamond is based on the short story "The Romance of Henry Menafee" by Paul Gallico...
(19581958 in filmThe year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
) - Funny GirlFunny Girl (film)Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title...
(19681968 in filmThe year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
) - Pennies from HeavenPennies from Heaven (1981 film)Pennies from Heaven is a 1981 musical film. The film was based on a 1978 BBC television drama. In 1981, Dennis Potter adapted his own screenplay for a film of the same name for American audiences, with its setting changed to Depression era Chicago. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award...
(19811981 in film-Events:*January 19 - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquires beleaguered concurrent United Artists. UA was humiliated by the astronomical losses on the $40,000,000 movie Heaven's Gate, a major factor in the decision of owner Transamerica to sell it....
) - DancersDancers (film)Dancers is a 1987 film directed by Herbert Ross and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Julie Kent. The story revolves around a ballet dancer who is planning to make a film version of the ballet Giselle, and how his romance with a young woman parallels the plotline of the ballet. The film received...
(19871987 in film-Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....
) - Saturday the 14th Strikes BackSaturday the 14th Strikes BackSaturday the 14th Strikes Back is a 1988 comic-horror film, directed by Howard R. Cohen and produced by Julie Corman. It is a sequel to Saturday the 14th....
(19881988 in film-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice...
) - Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (20102010 in filmThe year 2010 saw many new films released worldwide. 2010 saw a dramatic increase and prominence in the use of 3D-technology in filmmaking and film releases after the success of Avatar in the format, with releases such as Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, Jackass 3D, all animated films and...
) (documentary)
Short Subjects:
- Vendetta (19421942 in filmThe year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
)
Sources
- Koegler, Horst (1998). "Rall, Tommy", Dizionario della danza e del balletto, p. 392. Gremese Editore. ISBN 8877422629.
- Mordden, Ethan (2002). Open a new window: the Broadway musical in the 1960s. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 102. ISBN 1403960135
- New York Times. Movies and TV: Tommy Rall