Charles "Honi" Coles

Charles "Honi" Coles was an American actor and tap dancer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 2, 1911, to George and Isabel Coles. His father operated a pool hall and a barbershop, while his mother worked as a domestic servant. As a child, his sister cared for him and gave him the nickname "Honey." Around the age of 14 or 15, Coles joined a club called the Jolly Buccaneers and altered the spelling to "Honi," a name that followed him throughout his life and career, used even by his teachers.

Unable to afford formal dance instruction as a child, Coles learned tap on the street corners of Philadelphia during summer months, where he and his friends gathered to dance recreationally. Competitions emerged as dancers from other neighborhoods joined in, including a talented dancer named Billy Bailey. Through these contests, Coles and his peers developed a range of steps without any intention of pursuing dance professionally. By his late teens, however, he had committed to a career in show business, spending a year practicing alone to build speed, increase his taps per beat, and master complicated patterns. Though taller and slimmer than most tap dancers of his era, Coles developed what fellow dancer Pete Nugent described as "centipede steps," a technique in which his legs and feet moved in opposite directions. His style demanded technical precision and high-speed tapping executed close to the floor, with the legs and feet doing the primary work.

Coles made his professional debut in 1931 at the Lafayette Theater in New York City as one of the Three Millers, a group known for fast moves including over-the-tops, barrel turns, and wings performed on six-foot-high pedestals. After his partners replaced him with another dancer, he returned to Philadelphia to refine his technique. He came back to New York in 1934, performing at the Harlem Opera House and the Apollo Theater. At the Hoofer's Club in Harlem, a competitive venue for tap dancers, peers regarded him as the most graceful dancer they had seen, and he earned a reputation for having the fastest feet in show business. From 1936 to 1939, Coles joined the Lucky Seven Trio, a group that performed on large cube-shaped props resembling dice and executed ten costume changes during their act. Tours with the big swing bands of Count Basie and Duke Ellington during this period allowed him to refine his combination of high-speed tapping and elegant style.

In 1940, while performing as a dance soloist with Cab Calloway's orchestra, Coles met Charles "Cholly" Atkins, a jazz tap dancer known for his wing dancing. Both men entered the Army in 1943, and after the war ended in 1946, they joined their contrasting techniques to form the duo Coles and Atkins. Their act at the Apollo Theater featured tailored suits, precision swing dancing performed in unison, a soft-shoe sequence, and a challenge dance in which each man showcased his individual specialty — Coles with high-speed tapping and bebop cadences, Atkins with a lighter, more balletic approach. The duo collaborated with drummers including Cozy Cole, Jo Jones, Sonny Payne, and Buddy Rich, and toured throughout the 1940s with the big bands of Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Johnny Otis, and Billie Holiday. They also created choreography for June Taylor dancers for early television. Their specialty encompassed tap steps such as swing dance, over the top, bebop, buck and wing, and slow drag, all executed with a signature elegance.

Coles made his Broadway debut in 1949, and his career on Broadway spanned from that year through 1985. In 1949, Coles and Atkins created the show-stopping number Mamie is Mimi for the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the Ziegfeld Theater, though their contribution went uncredited by the show's choreographer Agnes de Mille. As Gentlemen Prefer Blondes concluded its run in 1952, the growing popularity of Broadway ballet reduced demand for tap, and the duo parted ways professionally. Coles subsequently appeared in Bubbling Brown Sugar and, in 1983, in My One and Only, the production that brought him his most prominent recognition. For My One and Only, he received both the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical, both in 1983.

Beyond Broadway, Coles appeared in the films The Cotton Club and Dirty Dancing, as well as the documentary Great Feats of Feet. He was a tap-dancing companion of Brenda Bufalino, the founder and director of the American Tap Dance Foundation, and served as a mentor to younger generations of tap dancers. He held that tap dance was the only dance art form America could claim as its own and often expressed the belief that anyone who could walk could tap. Over the course of his career, Coles received the Dance Magazine Award in 1985, the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance in 1988, and the National Medal of the Arts from President George H. W. Bush in 1991. He was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. Coles died on November 12, 1992.