In 1932, dancer Wilburn Riviere (dates unknown) appeared on Broadway in Hot-Cha!, subtitled Laid in Mexico. The following year, he and several other male members of the chorus went out to Hollywood to make their single film appearances, as chorus boys in MGM’s Dancing Lady. Presumably Hollywood’s rates were better than Broadway’s.
Category: Performers
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Wilburn Riviere
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Lester Ostrander
Lester Ostrander (dates unknown) was a Broadway chorus dancer from the 1910s onwards. In 1932, he appeared in Hot-Cha! (subtitled Laid in Mexico), after which he and several other male performers from the show (John Fulco, Louis Delgado, Wilburn Riviere) seem to have travelled to Hollywood to play chorus boys in MGM’s Dancing Lady.
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John Fulso
IMDb claims that John Fulso (dates unknown) played one of the chorus boys in MGM’s Dancing Lady. There does not seem to be any other information about him.
However, a John Fulco performed in Broadway productions, usually in the ensemble, throughout the 1920s and 30s. There is a reasonable chance that this is the same person, in which case the stage credits indicate that he was as much of a singer as a dancer. He also had a straight role in a 1931 mystery melodrama called Gray Shadow.
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Alan DeAstray
Alan DeAstray (date unknown) is an unusual name, so it should not be difficult to track down more information than the fact that he played a chorus boy in MGM’s Dancing Lady.
Yet it is difficult. In fact, to date, impossible.
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Louis Delgado
Louis Delgado (dates unknown) was a Broadway ensemble dancer who made just one film appearance, in MGM’s Dancing Lady.
On stage, Delgado performed in multiple Broadway musicals, including the 1928 production of Rodgers and Hart’s Present Arms, with dance direction by Busby Berkeley before he left for Hollywood.
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Francis Belton
There are many chorus girls from MGM’s older musicals whose life and careers are lost to history. For a change, Francis Belmont (dates unknown) was a chorus boy.
Belmont appeared in Dancing Lady in 1933, and no further information about him seems to be available.
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Mary Wilbur
Mary Wilbur (dates unknown) played a chorus girl in MGM’s Dancing Lady.
Any further information would be gratefully received.
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Marion Weldon
Marion Weldon (1913-89) was barely sixteen when she appeared in the chorus line of Fox’s Words and Music (1929).
Over the next ten years, Weldon made over thirty appearances, usually as uncredited dancers, but with a few featured roles in ‘B’ westerns.
Along with what seems like every other chorus girl in Hollywood, Weldon was in MGM’s Dancing Lady in 1933.
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Zelda Webber
There is probably much to say about Zelda Webber (dates unknown), but little of it is widely available.
What we do know is that she played a chorus girl in three pictures, for increasingly less glamorous studios. She started out in MGM’s Dancing Lady, and the following year was in Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) for Fox. After a gap of seven years, Webber was in Sis Hopkins (1941) at Republic.
A reasonable supposition might be that she she was working as a dancer in some other medium, but, at the moment, it must remain a supposition.
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Ardelle Unger
Ardelle Evelyn Unger (1914-60) was probably the only chorus girl in MGM’s Dancing Lady who could say her father worked as, amongst other things, a professional balloonist.
A born and bred Angeleno, Unger’s home town only used her in two other pictures, also as uncredited dancers. She then married comedian Jerry Lester and had three children.
