Frankie Manning, ‘ambassador of the Lindy Hop’, will be profiled in this short documentary that airs Thursday night, 5/21, at 10:30pm. It will be rebroadcast as part of SundayArts on Sunday afternoon, 5/24. We asked the filmmaker, Julie Cohen, a few questions about what it was like working with Manning, and that he passed away just as the project was wrapping up.

You can watch the entire documentary online at SundayArts.

(a little background on Manning here.)

Frankie Manning
photo: Ralph Gabriner

What was the impetus for this documentary?
I started reading about Frankie when I was researching a documentary about New Yorkers who served in World War II (Frankie fought in the Pacific). His whole life just felt like a THIRTEEN documentary waiting to happen. He had a fascinating career spanning eight decades and involving iconic New York City institutions from the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club in Harlem to Broadway. And luckily there was amazing footage of him dancing dating back to the 1930s. He had done a number of television interviews, most notably as a swing expert in Ken Burns’ wonderful Jazz series, so I knew he was a “great talker.” I got in touch with Cynthia Millman, who co-authored Frankie’s 2007 autobiography Ambassador of Lindy Hop, and she pointed me to loads of video of him dancing over the past ten years or so. I found myself smiling the whole time I watched. Frankie told me he’s never seen a dancer Lindy-Hopping who wasn’t smiling; I defy viewers to try watching Frankie dance without a smile.

I know he’s kind of a legend…did he perpetuate his own legend status?
I don’t think Frankie’s goal was to be a legend. He just wanted to swing. He achieved legend status because a) he was really, really, really good and b) he kept on swinging when most other people would have slowed down. I think his annual “birthday dance” helped the legend status a bit. Each year at his party he would dance with one woman for every year he’d been alive: 80 women on his 80th birthday, 90 on his 90th etc. I’ve watched the footage of a number of these events. It’s clear the women loved it, and so did Frankie.

Is Manning unique? Are there other serious old-time swing dancers who kept going for a long, long time? Or was he the only one?
There’s no question Frankie was unique. He had a unique dance style and a unique personality. As far as I know, he’s the only person who Lindy-Hopped from the time he was a teenager until he was 94. But there is another very talented member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers – the group that started in the early days of the Savoy Ballroom – who’s still dancing. Her name is Norma Miller and she’s a few years younger than Frankie was. They remained close friends.

Having spent some time with him, how did you feel when you heard he had passed?
This may sound odd to say about someone who was almost 95 years old, but I was truly shocked to hear Frankie had died. He was such a vital, energetic guy, with so much joie de vivre – I was sure he was going to be around to dance with 100 women on his 100th birthday. That would’ve been a great party.

Did he ever have a favorite dance partner?
Frankie was pretty careful not to name one partner as an all-time favorite, but he did tell me how much he enjoyed dancing with three people (you’ll see him dancing with all of them in the documentary):
–Ann Johnson, his partner in the movie Hellzapoppin’, whom he described as “like a cat”–meaning he could throw her high up in the air but she’d always land solidly on her feet;
–Willamae Ricker, another member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers;
–His son Chazz Young, also a professional dancer, with whom he did terrific duets in his later years.

Did he have any favorite songs to dance to?
In the doc, he mentions his all-time favorite song was ‘Shiny Stockings’, written by Frank Foster and performed by Count Basie. But he also loved ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’, ‘Tuxedo Junction’, and ‘T’Aint What You Do (It’s the Way that You Do It)’.

see a preview of the Manning doc here.

Julie Cohen and her company, BetterThanFiction Productions, have produced a number of programs for THIRTEEN, including The Jews of New York and New York Goes to War (watch the latter online). With her company, she produced Shakespeare on the Hudson last year.