Gregory Hines

Sleepy-eyed, silky-smooth black performer who has almost single-handedly kept the art of bigscreen tap dancing alive. He's also a capable dramatic actor who has shown he can command attention as a leading man. With his brother Maurice he became part of a successful show-business act called Hines, Hines and Dad, and developed his showbusiness savvy at a tender age. Also a skilled choreographer, Hines was a staple in New York clubs and on Broadway, most memorably in "Sophisticated Ladies" (when he took the show on the road, Maurice replaced him on Broadway). He got his first film role, as a Roman slave in Mel Brooks'History of the World-Part 1 (1981), as a last-minute replacement for an ailing Richard Pryor, and made a convincing if unorthodox medical examiner later that year in Wolfen In The Cotton Club (1984), Hines made his screen dancing debut as a thinly disguised Nicholas Brother (Maurice played his sibling). He used his dancing shoes again, opposite ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov, in White Nights (1985), and Tap (1989), as an excon trying to stay straight. His nonmusical characterizations include an unwilling gunrunner in Deal of the Century (1983), a wise-cracking cop (partnered with Billy Crystal) in Running Scared (1986), a nonwise-cracking cop in Eve of Destruction and a fast-talking con artist in A Rage in Harlem (both 1991). In 1994 he appeared in Renaissance Man In 1992 he won a Tony Award for the Broadway musical "Jelly's Last Jam."