Hermes Pan (choreographer)

Hermes Pan (December 10, 1909) as Hermes Pangiotopolous in Nashville, Tennessee – September 19, 1990) was an American dancer and choreographer. His career began with an appearance as a chorus boy in 1928 in the Marx Brothers Broadway production of Animal Crackers.

Related Topics:
December 10 - 1909 - Nashville, Tennessee - September 19 - 1990 - Dancer - Choreographer - Marx Brothers

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He met Fred Astaire, who he physically resembled, on the set of Flying Down to Rio (1933) as assistant to dance director Dave Gould. After suggesting an ingenious solution to a problem Astaire had run into in "The Carioca" number, Pan began a lifelong professional collaboration and friendship which included all the RKO Astaire pictures, including A Damsel in Distress (1937) in which Ginger Rogers did not appear, and for which he was awarded the 1937 Academy Award for Best Dance Direction. He had previously received Academy Award nominations for the Top Hat and The Piccolino numbers from Top Hat (1935) and for the Bojangles of Harlem number from Swing Time (1936).

Related Topics:
Fred Astaire - Flying Down to Rio - RKO - A Damsel in Distress - Ginger Rogers - Academy Award - Top Hat - Swing Time

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The Astaire-Pan collaboration is widely accepted as one of the most important forces in dance choreography of 20th century film and television musicals. Astaire called Pan his "ideas man", and while he generally choreographed his own routines, and sometimes worked with other choreographers, he greatly valued the assistance of Pan not just as a source and critic of ideas, but also as a rehearsal partner for the purposes of fine-tuning a routine. Given Astaire's obsessive rehearsal habits, this was no mean task. Pan also performed the essential function of rehearsing Ginger Rogers, whose many other commitments during the filming of the Astaire-Rogers musicals often conflicted with Astaire's rehearsal schedule. In addition, he recorded Ginger's taps in post production.

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He continued to collaborate with Astaire right up until the latter's last musical picture: Finian's Rainbow (1968), which was a disaster on a number of fronts, not least for Pan himself. The young director Francis Ford Coppola had no prior experience of film or stage musicals, and proceeded to ride roughshod over Astaire and Pan's plans for the film's dance routines, reintroducing the style of dancing camera of the early 1930's which Astaire had done so much to banish from the Hollywood musical. Eventually, Coppola fired Pan and has since acknowledged his primary responsibility for the film's artistic failure.

Related Topics:
Finian's Rainbow - Francis Ford Coppola

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Pan's first on-screen appearance is as a clarinetist during the Astaire-Goddard routine Let's Dig It in Second Chorus (1940), and dressed as The Ghost in the deleted (and only) Astaire-Pan routine Me and the Ghost Upstairs from the same film. He appeared with Betty Grable in Moon Over Miami (1942) (uncredited) and with Rita Hayworth in My Gal Sal (1942) , both non-speaking dancing parts.

Related Topics:
Clarinet - Second Chorus - Betty Grable - Moon Over Miami - Rita Hayworth - My Gal Sal

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When not working with Astaire, Pan was much in demand as a choreographer throughout the golden age of the Hollywood musical, most notably in Lovely To Look At (1952) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

Related Topics:
Lovely To Look At - Kiss Me Kate

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He won an Emmy award for the 1958 television special An Evening with Fred Astaire and was recognised with a National Film Award in 1980, and by the Joffrey Ballet in 1986.

Related Topics:
Emmy award - An Evening with Fred Astaire - National Film Award

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He died on September 19th, 1990.

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