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"Oklahoma"
souvenir program
Los
Angeles Civic Light Opera
1959
BOBBY
VAN - Bio
 
From
an impromptu "show must go on" song and dance routine
to the winner of Broadway's "best dancer" award
is a capsule version of Bobby Van's success.
The
in between chapters fit together like this:
Bobby
was a trumpet player with a band, got his chance to "go
on" as a hoofer one night when an act failed to show
up at curtain time. Then came hotel and supper club appearances,
an invasion of New York when Broadway producers discovered
his abilities and successively signed him for Alive and
Kicking, Red, White and Blue and Seventeen.
Hollywood
was next, with a film debut in Because You're Mine,
followed by Skirts Ahoy, Small Town Girl, The Affairs of
Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me Kate. Back to Broadway
to pick up that best dancer award for his work in On Your
Toes. (Just a year before, Photoplay had named him the
most promising movie star of the year.)
Recently,
to enlarge the circle even more, he appeared in a straight
dramatic role on television "Playhouse 90" to the
applause of critics who hailed him as an exciting talent of
depth and skill.
Click
on photo for larger version.
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