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Remembering a mentor
Another Man’s Dance
One of my mom’s favorite pastimes was shopping for shoes at the Cinderella boutique in Waco, Texas. Gorgeous dresses draped various mannequins around the store, but the shoes were undeniably awesome. My beautiful Mom was always disappointed that her own shoe size was a nine triple EEE and daughter Flo was a six and a half C, so shoe swapping was a no-go. Yes, that was a tangent and not the point! Back to Cinderella. The salesman who waited on Mom the most was Mr. Ted Pryor. They quickly became friends, which changed to “good” friends when she told him about her daughter who was a drama major at Baylor, and heading to Southern Methodist University in the fall as a transfer student in dance. Ted was very encouraging and suggested that she bring me to the shop as he’d love to meet me.
After a few months, he told her in confidence that he’d been a professional dancer during the heyday of the movie musical success in Hollywood and performed in several pretty high-powered movies. Only a few people close to him knew his story. He said he’d had to give up his performing career because of a lung condition. Mom was allowed to tell me (I, of course, was thrilled) and the next time she went shoe shopping, I drove her so I could make the acquaintance of a former dancer. He was a tall, attractive man with very dark, wavy hair. He appeared to be in his forties, with long legs, a bit barrel-chested, and sporting the muscular, broad shoulders needed for hoisting other dancers into striking poses at the end of routines.
Ted Pryor and I hit it off immediately. I can’t recall whether or not Mom bought shoes that particular day but she and I stayed in the shop for hours, discussing Carousel, Oklahoma! Guys and Dolls, Damn, Yankees! West Side Story and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with a man who had nearly encyclopedic knowledge about these musicals. This was long before the Internet, cable, or streaming TV. This was before video tapes and DVDs and Blu-rays. These were the musical movies I’d watch on Dialing for Dollars (afternoons from a Dallas station) or a similar channel that played movies during the very late hours of the night. These were the shows that made me love musical theater and want to be part of it. When I’d show up at the shop, Ted and I talked about the music and the dancing and the actors. He knew his stuff, and I absorbed it all.
I was also fascinated by his theory of artistic success, i.e.: “Ten percent talent. Ten percent persistence. Eighty percent luck.” It was an intriguing concept, but I had to disagree. How, I asked him, coming from an era that produced Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, Leslie Caron and Donald O’Connor, could one believe their success came primarily through luck? These were huge artists who enraptured audiences by merely showing up on screen. I told him that, while it was kind of comforting to blame blowing one’s career on luck, it really didn’t seem to be the dominant part of the equation. There was no way one could watch those truly great artists and not shift those percentages to eighty or ninety percent sheer blazing talent. I didn’t argue too fiercely. Something told me that Ted Pryor had run out of luck in his dancing career and needed to think he could have been the next Kelly or Astaire if the eighty percent had just landed his way.
For the next year, if I was home from Dallas and Mom wanted to go shopping, I’d go with her. She’d roam through Cinderella, checking out the dresses (and the shoes) while Ted and I dove into the mysteries of theater and film. He thought it was cool that I wanted to move to Manhattan and do my best to make it on Broadway but he was always very clear about the difficulties involved and said those difficulties were one reason he came up with his eighty percent luck concept. We talked about New York City and places I should see once I moved there after college.
After nearly a year, Mom finally got up the nerve to ask him, “Who exactly were you in Hollywood? Would we recognize the name?”
He said his name had been Tommy Rall. I was flabbergasted. Shocked. Excited. And damned bewildered.
Ted was Tommy Rall? As in the guy who danced with Bob Fosse in “My Sister Eileen,” showing off moves an American Ballet Theater principal would envy? Tommy Rall, whom Gene Kelly choreographed as “The Sharpie” in the unique “Invitation to the Dance”? Tommy Rall, as in Lucencio, the partner of Ann Miller, in “Kiss Me, Kate?” Rall was even the uncredited prince of the swan in Funny Girl! Tommy Rall displayed Incredible, near perfect ballet technique with his acrobatic leaps and his turns with an enviable energy and pizazz evident even on a small screen. When I finally saw “My Sister Eileen,” it was clear to me Rall was a performer who could…who should...have been as famous as Fosse or Kelly or Astaire. How on earth did Tommy Rall end up as a shoe salesman in Waco? Ted never said. The fact that he wasn’t teaching or choreographing, even with a bad lung, was puzzling, but both my mom and I felt the man was owed his privacy. We didn’t question him. But, yeah, we WERE very suspicious. Something was off.
Again, this was in the days long before tapes and DVDs and cable. We decided to conduct our own investigation by checking the listings for any of the movies he was supposed to be in were being televised, and making certain we watched them on the Dallas stations, no matter the hour.
When “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” hit Channel 11 at one a.m. one night, Mom made fudge, and the two of us eagerly hunkered down to see if we could figure out which brother Ted/Tommy was. Mom was pretty sure Ted claimed to have been the “ax” dancer but I poo-pooed the idea. I had teachers at SMU who worked with Matt Mattox and knew for certain he’d performed the mesmerizing feats with the ax in the film. Tommy Rall was identified in the credits as the character, “Frank.” Mom and I strained to see if we could recognize Pryor as Rall as Frank in the movie but this was also the days of smaller TV screens and we were soon frustrated. It was one of those, “It COULD be him…but… I don’t really think so” things. Tall and attractive with dark hair, someone currently in their forties, wasn’t much to go on and we were looking at a movie filmed nearly twenty years earlier. We loved Ted, but we were edging much closer to the certainty the Rall identity was false.
Slight jump and topic ahead. My first year at SMU was tough. As noted earlier, in what I later felt was not my smartest move, instead of just adding some summer classes and graduating early from Baylor as a drama major and heading to New York, I’d transferred to Southern Methodist University to get my dance degree. I was surrounded by dancers who’d taken their first class at three. I’d taken mine at fifteen. There was a ton of catching up to do, along with dealing with certain members of the faculty who wanted perfection and weren’t exactly nice about their wants. I watched as dancers, who were (to me, anyway) quite technically advanced, put in their applications to switch majors from dance to anything that didn’t involve getting screamed at along with being told to lose weight, which seemed to be a common gripe among some of the faculty members, no matter how anorexic the dancer. If I’d taken stock in Kleenex I would have been a millionaire. I felt stuck. I’d already transferred once. Couldn’t do it again. Unlike many of my student colleagues, I never cried in public, but my roommates were often treated to large batches of homemade brownies so I could pig out…my way of coping with the stress of teachers who literally swatted a dancer’s behind to “correct” their technique.
And then, that Christmas, I was gutted. Someone claiming to be a friend (Lynn) took it upon herself to absolutely shred me in front of another friend (Greg). Greg was going through his own crisis of identity, always seemed to be in another world, and never said a word as I was taken apart bit by bit. Greg sat there, admittedly stunned and upset, but didn’t offer a word in my defense, as my looks and my personality were ripped into pieces. Worse, he sat in silence as Lynn cheerfully and maliciously informed me that I had no talent. That I was one big fake.
I ’ll be honest. Lynn’s words, and the lack of support by someone I cared about, completely pierced my heart. I’m not stupid. I was aware that the entire attack done in front of Greg was Lynn’s way of ruining his and my friendship because she was jealous. She couldn’t get it through her head that, trite as it sounds, Greg and I were just friends. In her mind, I needed to be out of the picture. So, she forced me out Greg’s life.
In the course of two hours one evening, I lost two friends. But simply understanding that another person is jealous and consequently hateful isn’t an automatic healing. The person being attacked still has to deal with the kind of emotional pain that derails confidence and attitude and inner peace. And, for a while, Lynn’s plan to sabotage me worked. I tried, but I couldn’t get over it. I skipped auditions for a workshop at SMU in the middle of the semester because she had me feeling like someone she called “one big fake.” As though I was a fraud in all aspects of my life. If a cave had been handy, I would have claimed it as my new digs.
Enter Ted Pryor, the master of actual fraud. The town of Gatesville, Texas, about forty miles from Waco, decided to put on the musical, Oklahoma! in the middle of summer. I’m not sure what the logistics of how or why were, but Ted was contacted and became the director and choreographer. Auditions were held early in the spring. I knew nothing about any of this. At some point, Ted asked my mom whether I’d be home for the summer. All the major roles had been cast but he was badly in need of an all-around chorus person who could be a cutesy flirt performing with another dancer, in the “All or Nothing” number sung by the character Will Parker. But, more importantly, Pryor needed, as he told mom, a real dancer to be the featured saloon girl in the Dream Ballet (aka the “Lead Slut”). Moi!
Ted Pryor proved to be an excellent director and choreographer. I’d seen the movie and quickly realized that the majority of the dream ballet was taken from it, as were many of the other dances, but “modified” to fit the abilities of an amateur cast. He told me he’d been in the National Touring Company, which is how he knew the dances. Because there were no young male dancers qualified to dance it, he took the role of “Curly” in the Dream Ballet. He was in his forties, a good twenty-pounds overweight, and wasn’t in the shape of a chorus dancer performing shows eight nights a week, yet he still made the audience believe he was the dashing cowboy adored by his lady love. His technique wasn’t MGM musical perfection, but it was solid. In a word…he was good. We had a few moments dancing together in the ballet and I always felt assured my partner was there for me. His dancing, his knowledge of the steps in the show…all this once again seemed to reinforce Ted’s claim of being Tommy Rall…incidentally, an assertion he did not spread around.
There weren’t a lot of chances to talk during rehearsals, but one evening while on a break we got to chatting and I broke down and told him what Lynn had said. Oddly, he was the only person with whom I’d shared the story. I was still humiliated, yet something told me he’d understand. Ted was livid. He told me it was clear that Lynn was, indeed, jealous and doing her best to destroy the friendship I had with a guy who’d been too out of it to stand up for me…and that both Lynn and Greg were poison and needed to be banished from my life. He also flat out said, “She was wrong.”
I told him how badly she’d wrecked any confidence in my talent. Confidence which had become nearly non-existent. I asked him, rather tentatively, why he’d cast me without even auditioning me. Was it because he was such good friends with my mother and doing her a favor in being kind? Was no one else with at least a bit of training around? He smiled. “I wanted you.” He told me he’d seen me in Waco’s “Cotton Palace Pageant” as the lead saloon girl, loved my energy and moves and was intrigued when my Mom revealed I’d been asked to choreograph the scene.
“You had the talent. I saw it. I knew I could use you. And you’re wonderful on that stage. You have the kind of presence and energy that can’t be taught. Nothing fake there. Those traits are yours. They’ll always be yours.” Those comments changed my life. I had a feeling I’d hear the voice of Lynn for a long time, but I also knew I’d be able to overcome her hate with the knowledge that someone with real talent believed in me. I carried his words with me through auditions in New York and through performances for years after.
Fast forward. In 1989, Ted Pryor passed away. Financially, he was a pauper. Unemployed although by then he was probably living off social security earnings. I still have no idea why he left Cinderella. He moved to some town in East Texas for a few years in the 80s and then moved back. Again…no reasons. His life remained a mystery.
After his death, I sat down with Henry Snyder, director of the Waco Civic Theater, who’d become a buddy of mine, and had been a friend of Ted’s for many years. We had a long discussion about Mr. Pryor. Henry told me that although Ted had confided to him his claim to be Tommy Rall, Henry had discovered that Ted Pryor had been brought up in East Texas in a very poor family. He had no idea how Ted got out and became a dancer. And Ted WAS a dancer. That much was clear by his performance in Oklahoma! Henry and I both admitted we’d known for years that Ted and Tommy were two very different individuals and we speculated as to why Pryor built this fake persona based on the career of such a phenomenal performer.
We wondered why he’d stolen another dancer’s name and life. We had no answers. His later life was as much as mystery as his “Hollywood career.” His financial situation at death was so low that we helped create a fund to provide for a funeral.
We just knew we both loved him dearly.
In a bit of an interesting twist, the real Tommy Rall died on my birthday, October 6th, in 2020 at age 90. I have no idea what he was like, apart from being one amazing “triple threat” in Hollywood musicals. I like to imagine he’d’ve been pleased (very surprised but pleased!) to hear that a former dancer who’d become a shoe salesman in Central Texas, admired his talent so much he literally wanted to BE him.
This quote from Tommy Rall made me like the man even more. “I think you have to love music and dance because this business is so difficult. If you don't love the art and just want to be a star, then I think you're a dead duck. I don't think you could stand it otherwise.”
Ted would have related to that. He’d have liked the thought behind it.
Whoever he was, Ted Pryor loved music and theater and dance. Clearly, he’d been a performer…somewhere. No one who just dreams can step in and direct and performs a show like Oklahoma! unless they’ve been on stage doing those numbers night after night.
I’ll never know why Ted left “the business.” I’ll never know if his path crossed with Tommy Rall at some point, perhaps in a show somewhere, or a movie where Ted was uncredited or might have even played an extra. I’ll never know why Ted stopped dancing and moved to Waco.
I’ll never know what event compelled a young dancer to turn his back on his own career and his own name and assume the identity of a man he clearly idolized.
We all have dreams. And all too often, they can burst or simply disappear. We are forced to make hard choices. How to carry on, aware that a particular dream is impossible to retrieve. Ted’s dream morphed into taking another man’s identity once he realized he could never be the next star of MGM.
There are no answers. And, unless I’m inclined to hire a private detective, there will never be answers. To be honest, the details and the reasons as to why Ted changed his background don’t matter and it’s okay.
Ted Pryor was there when he was needed by a young dancer who had zero self-confidence and might have quit had he not encouraged her and told her she had talent. Encouraged her to always use her gifts, no matter the outcome. His comments echoed in my head when I was young and gave me the courage to get on a stage and dance. I still carry those words with me.
In all the time I knew him, I never heard Ted Pryor utter a defamatory or nasty comment about another human being. During one very magical summer, he brought beauty and art and laughter to a small-town Texas audience, transporting them to a different world. He was disciplined, funny, and creative, and instilled that discipline, often-needed humor, and creativity into his cast of players. He was loved for his efforts by both the performers and the theater-goers.
In the end, another man’s dance became his own.
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Flo Fitzpatrick
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