Anytime we watch videos of ourselves dancing in our youth, it’s sure to be hilarious and embarrassing. Who can ever forget “The Twist” and the “Mashed Potato”? With popular shows like American Bandstand on TV, it’s easy to look back at some of the most interesting dance fads in our recorded history. On The Judy Garland Show back in 1964, a group of six dancers did a dance called “The Nitty Gritty” to the song that has the same name. But it’s the dance that has everyone who watches this video smiling and wondering “what the heck is going on???”
All of the dancers are skilled and talented and have excellent timing, but one of the dancers in particular really stands out. His name is Robert “Bobby” Banas, and he ended up having quite a career. From the minute the dancing starts, Bobby steals the show. Since then, he’s appeared in movies like West Side Story and even got to kiss Marilyn Monroe in the movie Let’s Make Love. Also noteworthy, he played the uncredited chimney sweep in Mary Poppins. He also had a role in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Another amazing accomplishment is that he got to dance with Natalie Wood in the Michael Panaieff Children’s Ballet Company.
Dancing since the age of five, Bobby said that he would run and stand in doorways pretending they were small stages. Then he said he would “jive, moving my body to and fro, trying to keep up with the best of the music, knowing that when the music would crescendo I’d leap in the air defying gravity, only to land in a heap.” He says he’d then pick himself up and do it all over again. He loved the Big Bands like Ray Anthony, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, and Stan Kenton. He and his sister Faith began ballroom dance classes in 1942.
Source: YouTube
Bobby Banas is 86 years old now. And hey, it’s not every guy in a nursing home who gets to say he kissed Marilyn Monroe. Watch his moves below.