Steve Condos

Steve Condos, born October 12, 1918, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was an American tap dancer whose career spanned stage, film, and concert performance across several decades. He died on September 16, 1990, in Lyon, France, at the age of 71, of a heart attack suffered in a dressing room of the Maurice Ravel auditorium shortly after performing at the Lyon International Dance Biennial.

Condos built his early career as part of the Condos Brothers, a tap act he formed with siblings Nick and Frank. The group appeared in the 1937 film Wake Up and Live, in which orchestra leader Ben Bernie introduced two of the brothers, who performed two tap routines. The Condos Brothers received additional film credit as specialties in Moon Over Miami in 1941.

His individual film work included Song of the Open Road in 1944, Meet Me After the Show in 1951, and Tap in 1989. On Broadway, Condos appeared in productions spanning from 1948 to 1972, with credits that included Heaven on Earth, the comedy Say, Darling, and Sugar.

During the 1980s, Condos collaborated with Jimmy Slyde on a program of jazz tap improvisation presented at the Smithsonian Institution. He also developed the tap rudiments, a system modeled on the drum rudiments used by percussionists.

Condos met his wife, Eileen Earl, in an air raid shelter. Through his brother Nick's marriage to entertainer Martha Raye, Condos became her brother-in-law.