Dancer. A noted ballerina and modern dance performer, she was later a respected teacher. Raised in the suburb of Hoosick Falls, she was sponsored by a wealthy aunt for training in a New York ballet school from age 12 and made her 1920 Broadway debut in Jerome Kern's "Sally". Thru the 1920s, she appeared on the Great White Way several times, her credits including "Topsy and Eva" from 1924 to 1926, Florenz Ziegfeld's "The Three Musketeers" (1928), and a 1929 ballet presentation of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris". Harriet spent 1930 dancing in England, then returned to New York where she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. She continued her stage career and was also seen several times on the silver screen, her assignments including 1936's "The Great Ziegfeld" and "Billy Rose's Casa Manana Revue" (1938), though probably her best known film appearance was in the Gershwin brothers 1937 "Shall We Dance", which starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The movie included a roughly 15 minute sequence which begins with a solo for Harriet then has her joined by Astaire, the pair dancing to "They Can't Take That Away From Me"; George Gershwin's music, his last major symphonic work, was eventually rescored into "Hoctor's Ballet" which received its July 28, 2007 world concert premiere at Cleveland's Severance Hall. In 1940 she accepted a position as dancer and choreographer at Rose's The Diamond Horseshoe night club, then in 1945 opened her own dance school in Boston which she ran until her 1974 retirement. Harriet lived her final years in Lorton, Virginia and died following a protracted illness. Some sources give her birth year as 1903.
Dancer. A noted ballerina and modern dance performer, she was later a respected teacher. Raised in the suburb of Hoosick Falls, she was sponsored by a wealthy aunt for training in a New York ballet school from age 12 and made her 1920 Broadway debut in Jerome Kern's "Sally". Thru the 1920s, she appeared on the Great White Way several times, her credits including "Topsy and Eva" from 1924 to 1926, Florenz Ziegfeld's "The Three Musketeers" (1928), and a 1929 ballet presentation of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris". Harriet spent 1930 dancing in England, then returned to New York where she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. She continued her stage career and was also seen several times on the silver screen, her assignments including 1936's "The Great Ziegfeld" and "Billy Rose's Casa Manana Revue" (1938), though probably her best known film appearance was in the Gershwin brothers 1937 "Shall We Dance", which starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The movie included a roughly 15 minute sequence which begins with a solo for Harriet then has her joined by Astaire, the pair dancing to "They Can't Take That Away From Me"; George Gershwin's music, his last major symphonic work, was eventually rescored into "Hoctor's Ballet" which received its July 28, 2007 world concert premiere at Cleveland's Severance Hall. In 1940 she accepted a position as dancer and choreographer at Rose's The Diamond Horseshoe night club, then in 1945 opened her own dance school in Boston which she ran until her 1974 retirement. Harriet lived her final years in Lorton, Virginia and died following a protracted illness. Some sources give her birth year as 1903.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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