SWING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING
Born Jean Grinnell Phelps in Los Angeles, she was the middle child of three, having two brothers, Raymond and Robert.
Her parents divorced when she was young and the children went to live with their mother in Santa Maria in California, where she grew up.
Her mother was a telephone switchboard operator, doing the nightshift.
‘Mom’ loved dancing and encouraged Jean to take it up. She spent hours in the living room practicing the Lindy Hop with her brothers.
Lindy Hop was, ‘the exuberant swing dance style that had emerged out of Harlem in the 1920s, before making its way west to California.’ (The Washington Post)
It became extremely popular during the Second World War, partially due to featuring in Hollywood movies.
Jean won a jitterbug competition with her brother Ray, beating 500 other contestants.
They went on to win a dance contest at the Hollywood Legion Stadium. Her prize was a Screen Actors Guild Card (the American equivalent of an Equity card) and a role in the musical comedy Swing Fever.
In the film, Jean danced with two actors, Donnie Gallagher and Lennie Smith, who were portraying servicemen to the song ‘One Girl and Two Boys’. The Kay Kyser Orchestra were playing whilst Marilyn Maxwell sang lead vocals.
Jean was dressed in a knee-length skirt and wore high heels. Yet she still managed to do a back flip. It was known as the ‘Jean Flip’ and became her trademark.
Jean was just 19. Her reputation as an extremely athletic dancer was made.
She started to appear in other films such as ‘Groovie Movie’ alongside Arthur Walsh, which was about the history of ‘swing’. It was a short film, just nine minutes long, and was a tongue-in-cheek instructional video. Jean was dancing throughout the whole length, and it ended with her doing a handstand whilst up on Arthur’s shoulders.
Groovie Movie has become a cult classic and is still available on You Tube.
She also appeared in Where are Your Children, Jive Junction and The Horn Blows at Midnight (starring Jack Benny playing his trumpet).
Lindy Hop fell out of fashion when the war was over.
Jean then went to dance in a chorus line in a hotel in Las Vegas, and found herself experimenting with different dance forms.
In 1947, she married Harold ‘Babe’ Davi (They eventually divorced in 1963).
Meanwhile, Jean joined a dance school in Hollywood to try to learn new styles of dancing. It was run by Frank Veloz and his wife Yolanda Casazza. In the 1930s, they had appeared (as Veloz and Yolanda) in various films and were second in popularity only to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Their school was designed to teach film stars how to dance. As soon as Jean joined, Yolanda decided to retire, so Jean found herself teaching. She even appeared on Frank’s television show.
Jean taught Lana Turner, Susan Hayward and Ricardo Montalban.
Then Frank and Yolanda had a very messy divorce. Jean became Frank’s new dancing partner. She married him when her own divorce was finalised.
Jean and Frank had no children.
They appeared on the live television programme ‘Fare for Ladies’, where they danced the tango, waltz, rhumba and foxtrot – as well as swing.
Frank died in 1981. Jean immediately retired but eleven years later she was interviewed for a documentary on the history of swing, and realised how much she missed dancing. She came out of retirement.
Her return to dance coincided with a revival in the popularity of the Lindy Hop.
Jean started giving exhibitions and leading workshops across the USA, and then in Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Italy and Thailand.
She became the dance advisor to the ABC programme ‘The Bachelorette’. There she met up with dancer Rusty Frank and they became very close friends. Rusty became Jean’s manager and agent.
Jean was inducted into the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame. The citation read Jean was, “a living bridge from the Los Angeles dance scene of the 1940s, to the present-day Lindy Hop revival.”
Even in her nineties, Jean was known for her twisting, spinning, twirling style. She could stop on a sixpence. Rusty Frank said, “The only thing that moved when she stopped was her hair.”
In 2017, Jean appeared on the NBC programme ‘Little Big Shots’. Aged 93, she danced to the song ‘One Girl and Two Boys’, as she had done in the film ‘Swing Fever’ back in 1943.
Aged 95, she danced Spanish ballroom at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, performing to ‘Love Me or Leave Me’. Jean also appeared at the ‘Rock that Swing Festival’ in Munich.
Declining health caused her to move into a nursing home in Los Angeles, where she died.
She only had one member of her family left, a niece called Stacey.
Rusty Frank said, “Every moment spent with Jean was a lesson on how to live a life. Her positive attitude was unparalleled, her love of people immense.”
RIP – Romance Inspires Partnership
