Charles “Honi” Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...

and

tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...

r, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical precision, high-speed tapping, and a close-to-the-floor style where "the legs and feet did the work". Coles was also half of the professional tap dancing duo Coles and Atkins, whose specialty was performing with elegant style through various tap steps such as "swing dance", "over the top", "bebop", "buck and wing", and "slow drag". He appeared in the films '' The Cotton Club'' and '' Dirty Dancing'', as well as the documentary '' Great Feats of Feet''.Hill, Valis Constance. “Charles "Honi" Coles iography” In Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media, Library of Congress, accessed May 4, 2022, https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.tdabio.43/default.html Coles was also a tap-dancing companion of tap dancer

Brenda Bufalino Brenda Bufalino (born September 7, 1937) is an American tap dancer and writer. She co-founded, choreographed and directed the American Tap Dance Foundation, known at the time as the American Tap Dance Orchestra. Bufalino wrote a memoir entitled, ...

, the founder and director of the

American Tap Dance Foundation The American Tap Dance Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose primary goal is the presentation and teaching of tap dance. Its original stated purpose was to provide an "international home for tap dance, perpetuate tap as a contemporary art ...

. During his career, Coles was awarded the Dance Magazine Award in 1985, the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance in 1988, and the National Medal of the Arts by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. He was a tap mentor who believed, "If you can walk, you can tap." Coles advocated for the development of tap dance and often claimed that "tap dance was the only dance art form that America could claim as its own".

Early life

Charles “Honi” Coles was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

on April 2nd, 1911. He was the son of George and Isabel Coles. George Coles was an owner of a pool hall and a barbershop, while Isabel Coles was a domestic servant. When Coles was a child, his sister took care of him and gave Coles the nickname “Honey”.Charles “Honi” Coles. Dance On. By Billie Mahoney. Dance On Video, 1981. Later, when he was around 14 or 15 years old, Coles belonged to a club called the Jolly Buccaneers and changed the spelling of his nickname to “Honi”. This nickname became a crucial part of Coles’s life, in which his teachers also used to call him Honi. As a child, “Honi” Coles could not afford to go to dancing school, so he figured out a different way to learn how to tap dance. Coles and his friends gathered around the street corner of Philadelphia in the summer months to dance as a form of recreation. Later, other guys from different neighborhoods joined Coles and his friends, which created various competitions among young tap dancers. Billy Bailey, a talented dancer coming from another neighborhood, also competed on the street corner. Through watching other people tap-danced and joining such contests, Coles and his friends began to master various sets of dance steps, but “with no thought of using dancing as a means of livelihood”. By his late teens, after years of learning and practicing tap-dancing on the streets of Philadelphia, Coles was determined to make a career in show business. He practiced alone for a year to enhance his skill set, including speed, number of taps per beat, and complicated patterns. Although Coles was taller and slimmer than average tap dancers, he managed to maximize the potential of his physical appearance. Coles’s fellow tap dancer
Pete Nugent
said that Coles could do “centipede steps,” which means that his legs and feet could be pulled in opposite directions.

Career

1931 – 1935

In 1931, Charles “Honi” Coles made his debut at the Lafayette Theater, a popular black venue at that time, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

as one of the Three Millers.Seibert, Brian. What The Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing. New York: Farrar, Status and Giroux, 2016. They were popular for their fast moves, including over-the-tops, barrel turns, and wings, on six-foot-high pedestals. However, his partners hired another dancer to replace him, so Coles moved back to Philadelphia with a determination to perfect his fast-step style. After spending time improving his technique, Coles returned to New York City in 1934 and performed at the

Harlem Opera House Harlem Opera House was a US opera house located at 211 West 125th Street, in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect John B. McElfatrick, it was built in 1889 by Oscar Hammerstein; it was his first thea ...

and

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a ...

. When practicing at Joe Price’s acrobatics studio in downtown New York, Coles encountered some white dancers who came to challenge him. However, after Coles showed them his routines, the dancers walked away with confusion about his talent. With his fast-rhythm technique, he was highly respected and reputed to have “the fastest feet in show business” by other tap dancers. At the Hoofer's Club, a challenging stage for most talented tap dancers to compete in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

, Coles was still considered “the most graceful dancer ever seen” by his peers.

1936 – 1939

From 1936 to 1939, Coles replaced a member of the Lucky Seven Trio, who were the rivals to the Millers. Lucky Seven Trio was a group tapping on large cubes that looked like dice and going through ten costume changes during their act. In 1938, Coles teamed up with a comedian and then went single again. Through the tour with the big swing bands of

Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...

and

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

, Coles polished his technique, successfully combining high-speed tapping with an elegant style.

1940 – 1960

Coles and Atkins

In 1940, while performing as a dance soloist with

Cab Calloway Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalis ...

and his jive-swing orchestra, Coles me
Charles "Cholly" Atkins
Atkins is a well-known jazz tap dancer, who choreographed, staged, and staged acts for many vocal groups of the 1960s.Hill, Valis Constance. “Charles "Cholly" Atkins iography” In Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media, Library of Congress, accessed May 4, 2022, http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.tdabio.17/default.html “Honi” Coles’s specialty was precision and fast-rhythm steps, while Atkins was an expert wing dancer known as "the man with the moves". In 1943, both of them joined the Army during wartime. In 1946, after the war ended, they combined their unique techniques and styles to form the class act of Coles & Atkins and were hired to perform at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Their performance was popular because of their tailored suits, a precision swing dance in union, followed by a soft-shoe, and ended by a challenge dance, in which each dancer demonstrated his specialty. While Coles showcased his high-speed tapping and cadences of bebop, Atkins was more light-footed and combined tap with modern dance and ballet. Together, they ended the performance with precision steps and a walk offstage. Coles and Atkins soft-shoe was a masterpiece in adagio dancing, but their most significant achievement was the assemblage of tap dancers in a class act with a set musical arrangement coming from the bands. During their career as a duo, Coles and Atkins worked with a lot of drummers, including Cozy Cole, Jo Jones, Sonny Payne, and Buddy Rich.Atkins, Cholly, and Jacqui Malone. Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. The duo loved working with Jo Jones because he showed respect for dancers and knew how to accompany and provide music support for tap. They tried to develop a system in order to efficiently collaborate with drummers and musicians. Throughout the 1940s, Coles and Atkins appeared in a series of tours with the big bands of

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

Lionel Hampton Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles ...

Charlie Barnet Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. His major recordings were "Skyliner", " Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffl ...

Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously ...

Johnny Otis Johnny Otis (born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes; December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012) was an American singer, musician, composer, bandleader, record producer, and talent scout. He was a seminal influence on American R&B and rock and roll. He ...

, and

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...

. In late 1946, they performed the El Grotto in

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at Sixty-fourth and South Cottage Grove Avenue with Ziggy Johnson. After the El Grotto ended, Ziggy asked if the duo wanted to go with him to the Plantation, so they moved back to New York. In 1947, Coles and Atkins went on a tour with

to the West Coast on a northern route, then came back with

’s band following a southern route. During the summer of 1947, they performed with

The Ink Spots The Ink Spots were an American pop vocal group who gained international fame in the 1930s and 1940s. Their unique musical style presaged the rhythm and blues and rock and roll musical genres, and the subgenre doo-wop. The Ink Spots were widely ac ...

, in which

was a band leader, in a “slow-motion acrobatic dance, using jazz movements”. Additionally, Coles and Atkins also created choreography for June Taylor dancers for early television. In the late 1940s, Coles and Atkins realized that the audiences became less interested in “pure” tap. In a performance at the Look-out House in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

, they began to add comedy to their performance, but only gained partial success. In 1949, their creation of the show-stopping Mamie is Mimi, a part of the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the

Ziegfeld Theater The Ziegfeld Theatre was a single-screen movie theater located at 141 West 54th Street in midtown Manhattan in New York City. It opened in 1969 and closed in 2016. The theater was named in honor of the original Ziegfeld Theatre (1927–1966) w ...

, went uncredited by the show's choreographer

Agnes de Mille Agnes George de Mille (September 18, 1905 – October 7, 1993) was an American dancer and choreographer. Early years Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMill ...

. By the time Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ended in 1952, Coles and Atkins found that jobs were scarce as the integration of a new style of Broadway ballet became more popular than tap dance. As a result, each dancer took new jobs. Coles opened a dance studio wit
Pete Nugent
while Atkins became a vocal coach for many vocal bands. Although Coles and Atkins continued to work in the 1950s, they could not overcome the decline in audience’s interest and eventually broke up in 1960.

Collaboration with Pete Nugent

During the period 1954-1955, Coles collaborated with Pete Nugent, a talented tap dancer from Washington, D.C., to open the Dance Craft studio on Fifty-second Street in New York City in spite of the ongoing decrease in the interest in tap dance in the 1950s. However, their studio closed in 1957 due to the prevalent loss in interest. Coles recalled that difficult period, “No work, no money. Tap had dropped dead.” Honi Coles met

during this period at his Dance Craft studio. When Bufalino was eighteen, she moved to New York City to further her dance studies in 1955. At his dance studio, Coles taught his fast-rhythm tap dancing and his other tap steps to Bufalino.

1960 – 1970

After Coles and Atkins broke up in 1960, Coles started working as a production stage manager for the Apollo Theater for the next sixteen years. Some of his responsibilities included introducing other class acts. “Honi” Coles described the Apollo chorus line and the Apollo performances, “A dancing act could come into the Apollo with all original material and when they left at the end of the week, the chorus line would have stolen many of the outstanding things that they did.” Additionally, Coles served as the president of the Negro Actors Guild and continued his association with the

Copasetics The Original Copasetics were an ensemble of star tap dancers formed in 1949 on the death of Bill Bojangles Robinson that helped to revive the art of tap. The first group included composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn and the choreographer Cholly Atkins ...

, a club for musical and tap artists to preserve the memory of

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the f ...

. During the 1950s and 60s, the Copasetics played an important social force in the Harlem community as “Polo theater”, with annual balls and charitable performances to raise funds for children.Bufalino, Brenda. Tapping the Source: Tap Dance Stories, Theory and Practice. Codhill Press, 2004. In 1962, Coles performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, and his performance brought veteran members of the Copasetics back to the stage. Members of the Copasetics mentored and performed with the proceeding generation of female tap pioneers, including

, Jane Goldberg, an
Deborah Mitchell

1970 – 1990

Coles joined the tour of

Bubbling Brown Sugar ''Bubbling Brown Sugar'' is a musical revue written by Loften Mitchell based on a concept by Rosetta LeNoire and featuring the music of numerous African-American artists who were popular during the Harlem Renaissance, 1920–1940, including Duke ...

and performed the role of John Sage in 1976. He regained his popularity as a soloist, and was able to perform at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall. In 1978, after receiving compliments for his performance in the Joffrey Ballet production of Agnes de Mille's ''Conversations on the Dance,'' Coles emphasized the influence of tap dance in the world of concert dance. After the success of the documentary
Great Feats of Feet
' in 1977, Coles joined Brenda Bufalino in their duet concert of ''The Morton Gould Tap Concerto'' and toured the United States and England. ''Singing, Swinging, and Winging'' was Bufalino’s first major performance, and Honi Coles, as a guest tap dancer, appeared midway through the second half of the program with ''Honi’s Suite''. ''Honi’s Suite'' is a combination of musical compositions, monologue, and choreography performed by Bufalino and Coles, including “Let’s Dance,” “Get Yourself Another Guy,” “Don’t Get Caught Short on Love,” “Warm Feet,” and the signature soft-shoe of Coles and Atkins–“Taking A Chance On Love.” After ''Singing, Swinging, and Winging'', Coles continued to work with Bufalino. In 1979, they created a tap choreography for ''The Morton Gourt Tap Concerto'', performed with the Brooklyn Academy Philharmonic Orchestra. Following the success of this performance, they collaborated to choreograph ''Sounds of Music''. Their successful collaboration highlighted the interplay of different races within the tap community. Bufalino said about their collaboration and friendship, “the white vaudevillian, the black vaudevillian. It was a wonderful show but it was hard to book because we were black and white.” When being asked about the reason he taught his tapping skill to a white woman, specifically Bufalino, Coles responded to his peers, “Because no blacks want it, and ''she'' does, and because nobody else can do it, and ''she'' can.” The connection and creative ties between Coles and Bufalino were continued for the next fifteen years. In 1983, Coles performed with Tommy Tune in
My One and Only
', a Broadway musical show at the St. James Theater. After his show-stopping duet with Tune, Coles was reputed to have “an understated exercise in precise terpsichorean pointillism”. Jack Kroll described Coles’s feet in ''Newsweek'' as “have the delicacy and power of a master pianist’s hands." In 1984, Coles appeared in Jane Goldberg’s ''The Tapping Talk Show'', which was presented at the Village Gate from March 2 to March 3. The show was produced by Pamela Koslow and directed by Mercedes Ellington, featuring the guests Cookie Cook
Marion Coles
Chinky Grimes, and Beverly Wasser. ''The Tapping Talk Show'' combined both veteran and female tap dancers. During the 1980s, also Coles taught dance and dance history at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are r ...

, and

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

Television and notable performances

Notable performances

* ''Taking A Chance On Love'' with Coles and Atkins * Newport Jazz Festival (1962) * ''Singing, Swinging, and Winging'' (1978) * ''Sounds in Motion'' (1979) * ''By Word of Foot'' (1980) * ''Shoot Me while I’m Happy'' * ''Swinging Taps'' (1980) * ''Black Broadway'' (1980) * ''The Essence of Rhythm'' * ''My One and Only'' (1983) * ''The Tapping Talk Show'' (1984)

Film and television appearances

Coles has appeared in the films '' The Cotton Club'' (1984) and '' Dirty Dancing'' (1987), as well as the documentary �
Great Feats of Feet
�� (1977). Some of his television performances include '' The Tap Dance Kid'', ''Mr. Griffin and Me'', ''Conversations in Dance'', ''Charleston'', ''Archives of a Master'', and Dance in America's ''Tap Dance in America'' for PBS. The 1963 ''

Camera Three ''Camera Three'' was an American anthology series devoted to the arts. It began as a Sunday afternoon local program on WCBS-TV in New York and ran “for some time”Mercer, Charles, Associated Press writer, Television World column, “Obscure Pr ...

'' television program showcased Coles and Atkins' ''Soft Shoe'' and ''Over the Top with Bebop'', which was narrated by jazz historian

Marshall Stearns Marshall Winslow Stearns (October 18, 1908 – December 18, 1966) was an American jazz critic and musicologist. He was the founder of the Institute of Jazz Studies. Biography Stearns was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Edith Baker Wins ...

Personal life

In 1944, Coles marrie
Marion Evelyn Edwards
a dancer in the Number One chorus at the Apollo Theater, and together, Coles and his wife had two children. On November 12, 1992, Charles "Honi" Coles passed away from cancer in Queens County, New York, aged 81. On November 6, 2009, his wife Marion Coles died in Queens County, New York, at the age of 94.

Awards

In 1983, Coles received the Tony Award, Fred Astaire Award, and Drama Desk Award for best-featured actor and dancer in
My One and Only
', a popular Broadway musical starring Tommy Tune. Coles was awarded the Dance Magazine Award in 1985 and the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance in 1988. In 1991, he was awarded the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons ...

by President George H. W. Bush.

References

External links

* * * African-American Newspapers, 1827-1998, accessed May 3, 2022.
American Tap Dance Foundation
accessed May 4, 2022. * Chicago Defender, 1909-2010 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), accessed May 3, 2022.

accessed May 4, 2022. * New York Amsterdam News, 1922-1993 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers), accessed May 3, 2022.
Talks and Taps, with Brenda Bufalino and Honi Coles
accessed May 4, 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Coles, Charles 1911 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American singers African-American male actors African-American male dancers African-American male singers African-American educators American male dancers American male film actors American male musical theatre actors American male stage actors American tap dancers Cornell University faculty Dance teachers Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Drama Desk Award winners Duke University faculty Educators from New York City George Washington University faculty Male actors from New York City Male actors from Philadelphia Musicians from New York City Musicians from Philadelphia Tony Award winners United States National Medal of Arts recipients Vaudeville performers Yale University faculty