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Staircase dance (The Little Colonel, 1935)

Bill Robinson & Shirley Temple

Director
Year
1935
Category
Dance
Country
United States

In 1935, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and six-year-old Shirley Temple walked up a staircase together — a pairing Hollywood had never filmed before, at a time when the studio told Robinson not to make physical contact with Temple. The staircase scene was cut from every print sent to the American South, meaning the North and South literally saw two different films. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire both said that without Bojangles, neither of them would have become the tap dancers they were.