Fosse Read Free Page B

the Gendarme, the Maid, and the Waiters as they crossed
le petit boulevard.
It was a good part. Keeping an eye on Fosse’s progress, Weaver ushered him from the recital to the YMCA amateur hour in 1938 and then to a lead in a comedy sketch (“Fun in a Courthouse”) for the spring show that year. In November 1937,Fosse was the star of Myrtle Church’s fourth annual Family Nite and Armistice Celebration.
La Folies de l’Academie of 1938,
presented by F. Weaver with dances by M. Comerford, prominently featured Bobby Fosse’s “Junior Follies.” He kept climbing. “Mr. Weaver really watched usin recitals,” Grass said. “The students he thought had talent he took to the Masons and the Elks and then it progressed to money jobs.”
    Charlie Grass, one of Weaver’s best ballet dancers, was part of a trio, a pintsize version of the Ritz Brothers, and about the time Cy Fosse fell behind on his son’s dance-tuition payments, Charlie’s group lost two-thirds of its talent, which meant that Weaver, their agent, lost his commission. A double act was far easier to book than a solo, and by teaming Fosse with Grass, Weaver could get back his agent’s fee plus enough to cover the tuition Cy Fosse owed him. Best of all—from Cy’s point of view, at least—after Weaver was paid off, Bobby’s share of the profits would go to his father. With all parties pleased, Bobby Fosse signed a contract granting Weaver 15 percent of his earnings for the next ten years, through Fosse’s twenty-first birthday.
    Grass and Fosse were a team, and after a round of paper-scissors-rock, they had a name, the Riff Brothers, an homage to the Nicholas Brothers, and they threw a second round of paper-scissors-rock to decide on their costumes, which would be purchased at a secondhand-clothing shop on Maxwell Street and tailored to fit them by Charlie’s aunt Rita. For the first part of the act, their double, they’d dance side by side in black tails and starched collars; in the second, the singles, they’d wear white dinner jackets. For the third and final part, their competition dance, they would keep the white dinner jackets on and draw cheers one-upping each other with the kind of flash antics made famous by the Nicholas Brothers. “We’d each do tricks,” Grass explained. “Squat wings, eagle wings, over-the-tops, things like that. We didn’t do a lot of acrobatics. We wanted to be more like Fred Astaire. We never put our hands on the floor.” The steps came compliments of Miss Comerford, but the concept—marrying Fosse’s tap with Grass’s ballet—was pure Weaver.
    Bobby’s interests expanded from his own routines to include larger matters, like overseeing life at the studio and running the academy’s newsletter, “CATA Gossip,” which he’d founded and which he wrote, edited, and distributed. Fosse’s column, “Looking Thru the Keyhole—by the Sneak,” razzed students for missing class, dished academy romances (“What blonde singer is enamoured of what blonde dancer—and is it unrequited? [If you don’t know what this means consult your Webster]”), and singled out hard workers. “Propaganda note,” wrote the Sneak, “Ruthie Faltermeyer doing her stuff in Gym class at Ravenswood School. She gives the CATA good publicity.” (Publicity: the concept fascinated him.) With Charlie Grass, Bobby wrote his own segue patter for academy recitals, which he was emceeing regularly.
     
CHAS :
Well that’s over.
BOB :
What will we do next?
CHAS :
Go on with the show.
BOB :
What will we call it?
CHAS :
“The Parade of Blondes.”
BOB :
How do you get that name?
CHAS :
YOU SHOULD SEE THEM.
BOB :
Oh! Yeah! Well you stay here and on with the show and I’ll be back.
CHAS :
Not on your life. MAYBE I’ll be back.
BOB :
Well, no kidding. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll tell the folks about the show and you go out there and dig me up a nice blonde.
CHAS :
O.K.
BOB :
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a show from the Chicago Academy