Tommy Rall

Thomas Edward Rall, born December 27, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Seattle, Washington, was an American actor, ballet dancer, tap dancer, and acrobatic dancer. The son of Edward and Margaret Rall, he was an only child whose crossed eye made reading difficult, prompting his mother to enroll him in dance classes. He went on to become a prominent featured player in 1950s Hollywood musical films before transitioning to a career as an operatic tenor in the 1960s. He died on October 6, 2020, of congestive heart failure at the age of 90.

Rall's performing career began in his youth in Seattle, where he developed a dance and acrobatic vaudeville act and pursued small acting roles. After his family relocated to Los Angeles in the 1940s, he began appearing in minor film parts, with his first screen credit being an uncredited bit in the MGM short Vendetta. He took up tap dancing and joined the Jivin' Jacks and Jills at Universal Studios, appearing in that capacity in a series of wartime musical films alongside Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, and Shirley Mills, including Give Out, Sisters (1942), Get Hep to Love (1942), and Mister Big (1943). He also appeared in The North Star and Song of Russia, both released in 1944.

Rall's film career reached its peak during the 1950s, when he became known for his acrobatic dancing in a series of celebrated MGM musicals. He played Bill Calhoun in Kiss Me, Kate (1953), Frank Pontipee in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Chick in My Sister Eileen (1955), and Giacomo Gallini in Merry Andrew (1958), and appeared in Invitation to the Dance (1956). As the Hollywood musical declined, his film work diminished, though he later took an uncredited role as the Prince in a Swan Lake parody in Funny Girl (1968).

Rall's stage career spanned Broadway from 1946 to 1970. His early credits included Ballet Theatre (1946), Look Ma, I'm Dancin'! (1948), Small Wonder (1948), and Miss Liberty (1949), in which he played The Boy, The Dandy, and Another Lamplighter. He served as principal dancer and understudy for Russell Nype in Call Me Madam (1950). In 1959 he played Johnny Boyle in the Marc Blitzstein and Joseph Stein musical Juno, based on Seán O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, with critic Ken Mandelbaum noting that Agnes de Mille's second-act ballet in which Rall danced out Johnny's emotions was the evening's highlight. He starred as David in Milk and Honey (1961), a performance that earned him a place on the marquee beneath the show's three principal stars, a distinction that producer Gerard Oestreicher added in response to audience reaction. Composer Jerry Herman noted that choreographer Donald Saddler created extraordinary work for Rall in that production and described him as a terrific singer and dancer. Rall also starred in Cafe Crown (1964), playing David Cole, and appeared as Petey Boyle in Cry for Us All (1970).

Concurrent with his Broadway work, Rall pursued operatic singing. In 1961 he took the title role in a New England Opera Theatre production of Massenet's Le jongleur de Notre-Dame in Boston, a part that required singing, juggling, and dancing simultaneously. He subsequently made appearances with the Opera Company of Boston, the New York City Opera, and the American National Opera Company.

Rall was briefly married to his Juno co-star Monte Amundsen. He later married former ballerina Karel Shimoff, with whom he had two sons: Aaron, a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, and David, who predeceased his parents. In 2007, it came to light that a Texas dance instructor named Fredric Brame had been impersonating Rall since the late 1960s. Upon learning of the situation through a family friend, Rall contacted the Montgomery County, Texas Sheriff's office. No legal action was taken, but Rall warned that a lawsuit would follow if Brame continued to claim credit for his work. Rall underwent heart surgery in September 2020 and, following additional cardiac surgery in October of that year at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, died of congestive heart failure on October 6, 2020.