#1
Posted: 1/22/10 at 11:43pm
After the news of Jean this is doubly sad.
RIP to the kind, insanely gifted, James Mitchell. Agnes DeMille called him the finest America male ballet dancer of his generation, and watching him in the Oklahoma! dream ballet as Curley, or in Band Wagon it's easy to see why. He was also a gifted actor, who played Palmer Cortland on All My Children from 1979 to this past year (it's surreal as he was on their 40th Anniversary episode just two weeks back). He had a happy, healthy, and long life and career, and passed away quickly.
Not the best scene, but HERE's a classic moment of him as Palmer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ4GMumL-mk
And here's all I could find online of him in the Oklahoma dream ballet--about a minute and a half at the end of THIS clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wMFXSFKRBU
And not the best quality, but HERE he is as the male lead in Agnes DeMille's Civil War Ballet from Bloomer Girl, recreated ten years later for TV (it should be poitned out Agnes hoped to marry James but, well cuz he was gay and for the times really open about it, that never happened). And not the best quality, but [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OixjJfjgFa0
I always feel he's been a bit underated--a footnote in many ballet books because so much of his dancing was "merely" for musical theatre, and then ignored as an actor because he was "merely" a soap star.
RIP
RIP to the kind, insanely gifted, James Mitchell. Agnes DeMille called him the finest America male ballet dancer of his generation, and watching him in the Oklahoma! dream ballet as Curley, or in Band Wagon it's easy to see why. He was also a gifted actor, who played Palmer Cortland on All My Children from 1979 to this past year (it's surreal as he was on their 40th Anniversary episode just two weeks back). He had a happy, healthy, and long life and career, and passed away quickly.
Not the best scene, but HERE's a classic moment of him as Palmer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ4GMumL-mk
And here's all I could find online of him in the Oklahoma dream ballet--about a minute and a half at the end of THIS clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wMFXSFKRBU
And not the best quality, but HERE he is as the male lead in Agnes DeMille's Civil War Ballet from Bloomer Girl, recreated ten years later for TV (it should be poitned out Agnes hoped to marry James but, well cuz he was gay and for the times really open about it, that never happened). And not the best quality, but [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OixjJfjgFa0
I always feel he's been a bit underated--a footnote in many ballet books because so much of his dancing was "merely" for musical theatre, and then ignored as an actor because he was "merely" a soap star.
RIP
