Everything about Arthur Murray totally explained
Arthur Murray (
April 4,
1895 –
March 3,
1991) was a
dance instructor and
businessman, whose name is most often associated with the dance studio chain that bears his name.
Early life and start in dance
Arthur Murray was born in
Galicia,
Austria-Hungary in 1895 as
Moses Teichman or Teichmann. In
August 1897, he was brought to America by his mother Sarah on the
S.S. Friesland, and landed at
Ellis Island. They settled in Ludlow Street, in the
Lower East Side of Manhattan with his father, Abraham Teichman. In
1912 at the age of 17, he began teaching dance at night while working as a
draftsman by day. He studied under the popular dance team of
Irene and Vernon Castle and went to work for them.
He soon began teaching
ballroom dancing to the residents of
Boston, Massachusetts at the
Devereaux Mansion, before moving to
Asheville, North Carolina. At the outbreak of
World War I, under pressure of the anti-German feeling prevalent in the U.S., Teichman changed his name to make it sound less
German.
In
1919 he began studying
business administration at
Georgia Tech, and he taught ballroom dancing in Atlanta at the
Georgian Terrace Hotel. In
1920, Murray organized the world's first "radio dance"; a band on the Georgia Tech campus played "
Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" and other songs, which were broadcast to a group of about 150 dancers (mostly Tech students) situated atop the roof of the
Capital City Club in downtown Atlanta.
The start of Arthur Murray Studios
His first business was selling dance lessons by mail, using a
kinetoscope. Though the idea was successful, he'd problems with the business, which failed. His second business was drawing and selling "footprints" (an unusual use of drafting skills) which prospective dancers could place on the floor and follow to learn how to dance. This
mail-order business remained successful. His third business, launched in
1925, involved selling
branded dance lessons through
franchising. He trained dance instructors for the
Statler Hotel chain, who then went to various hotels and gave lessons; Murray kept some of the profits from each franchise.
This business was expanded more widely in
1938, when an Arthur Murray dance studio franchise was opened in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. Others followed.
After
World War II, Murray's business grew further with the rise of interest in
Latin dance, and he regularly taught and broadcast in
Cuba in the 1950s. Murray went on
television with a dance program hosted by his wife
Kathryn Murray,
The Arthur Murray Party, which ran from
1950 to
1960, on
CBS,
NBC,
DuMont,
ABC, and then back to
CBS. The Murrays retired in
1964 although they continued to be active for some time, even appearing as guests on the
Dance Fever disco show in the late 1970s.
At that date, there were over 3,560 dance studios bearing his name. In 2007 there were about 220 Arthur Murray Studios in operation.
Arthur Murray in pop culture
The Murray name and franchise were immortalized in the 1942 hit song "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry", written by
Johnny Mercer and
Victor Schertzinger.
Arthur Murray is mentioned in the song
Tear-stained Letter by
Richard Thompson. The song appears on Thompson's 1983 album
Hand of Kindness.
Critics have complained that Arthur Murray's franchised dance studios and instruction methods have overly homogenized many popular dances, especially Latin dances, by using instruction methods that don't "teach to the music", and by giving the impression that there's only one correct way to do each dance. The business is credited with promoting modern competitive ballroom dancing, also known as
DanceSport.
In the film
The Sky's the Limit (1943), when
Fred Astaire and
Joan Leslie finish a dance number, Joan asks him "Where did you learn to dance like that?" and Astaire answers "Arthur Murray".
In the 1987 film
Dirty Dancing, Johnny tells Baby that he received his training at the Arthur Murray studios.
A song entitled
Arthur Murray appears on the 1988
Vic Chesnutt album
The Salesman and Bernadette.
In the 1995 film
The American President, when Sydney Ellen Wade remarks to the President while dancing "I don't know how you do it", the President replies, "It's Arthur Murray. Six lessons."
In the
I Love Lucy episode "Little Ricky Gets a Dog," Lucy tells Ricky that she's receiving Mexican hat dancing lessons from Arthur Murray.
Trivia
- Arthur and Kathryn Murray had twin daughters, Jane and Phyllis. On June 4, 1951, Jane married Dr. Henry Heimlich who became famous for introducing the Heimlich maneuver in 1974. Phyllis married Edward Irvine "Ted" McDowell, an educator.
- Arthur Murray Dance Studios claims to be the second-oldest franchised company (the first, A&W Restaurants, began in 1919).
- Pupils of Murray have included Eleanor Roosevelt, the Duke of Windsor, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Barbara Hutton, Elizabeth Arden, Manuel L. Quezon and Jack Dempsey. Instructors have included well-known television evangelist D. James Kennedy.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Arthur Murray'.
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