Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Famous choreographer Cholly Atkins, 89, dies

Dance artist influenced performers from Motown to Vegas

Cholly Atkins Las Vegas resident won 1989 Tony Award for "Black and Blue"

Cholly Atkins, the Tony Award-winning choreographer who provided the moves for such Motown greats as the Temptations, O'Jays and Gladys Knight and the Pips, died Saturday in Las Vegas of pancreatic cancer. He was 89.

"He was more than a choreographer; he was a show designer," Knight said in a written statement about the collaborator known in the musical world as "Pops."

"He was so underrated and overlooked for the contributions that he made to our industry. There is not one African-American artist that he did not touch in some way," wrote Knight, who worked with Atkins from the earliest days of her career.

"I believe one of the most ingenious ideas that (former Motown label head) Barry Gordy had was that he saw the worth of Cholly Atkins and brought him to Motown."

New York-based dance historian Jacqui Malone collaborated with Atkins on his 2001 autobiography, "Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins," and describes him as "America's quintessential jazz dance artist."

In the book's introduction, she calls Atkins "one of our unsung heroes. ... His life brings together so many art forms that define 20th-century American culture: jazz dance, jazz music, rhythm & blues, musical theater and rhythm tap."

He was born Charles Atkinson in Pratt City, Ala., on Sept. 30, 1913. Atkins and his wife Maye had lived in Las Vegas since 1975. "We wanted to live some place that would be good for retirement, good for senior people, in a house that was ours," he recalled in his autobiography.

"Retirement," however, led to his highest-profile honor: the 1989 Tony for his contributions to the Broadway song-and-dance revue "Black and Blue."

"It was the first time I ever choreographed anything for Broadway and the first time I was nominated for a major award. So that makes it doubly exciting," he told the Review-Journal after receiving the award in June 1989.

Though he was already in poor health, Atkins helped Knight open her ongoing headliner revue at the Flamingo in February 2002, contributing to Bubba Knight's Sammy Davis Jr. dance tribute.

Atkins began his career in 1929 as a singing waiter in upstate New York. He then teamed with another singing waiter, William Porter, forming a vaudeville-style song-and-dance act, the Rhythm Pals.

The team dissolved in the late 1930s, and Atkins danced and choreographed with the Cotton Club Boys. They appeared with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in "The Hot Mikado" at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

Atkins went on to team with dancer Dottie Saulters and work with the Mills Brothers, the Earl Hines Band, the Louis Armstrong Band and the Cab Calloway revue.

But in 1946, Atkins made his most successful career move, forming "Class Act" with Charles "Honi" Coles. They worked with such top acts as Count Basie, Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnell and Billie Eckstine.

"Our original plan was to start a dancing school," Atkins recalled in his book. "Then we realized that setting up a business took a lot more money than either of us had. So we decided to throw a few things together, do an act for a while."

As tap faded by the 1960s, Atkins became staff choreographer at Motown Records, where he worked with Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes and Aretha Franklin, among others. He also was one of Gregory Hines' tap teachers.

The Motown look "helped preserve and recycle much of the vocabulary of classic jazz dance, including some tap," Malone notes. "Cholly Atkins set the standard for presenting America's leading R&B singers and created a unique dance genre."

"All of this dance moves in a circle," Atkins noted in his book. "The switch from choreographing rhythm tap to choreographing for vocal groups was ... a natural progression because of the way both are connected to black social dance, and really, all of it is jazz dance."

He is survived by his wife Maye and son Curtis Pat Sherrod, both of Las Vegas, and by a daughter, Dee Sherrod of North Hollywood, Calif.

There will be a private service. In addition, a memorial service for the public is pending.