"Jack Cole (1911-1974), born John Ewing Richter, was an American choreographer, dancer, and the "father" of theatrical jazz dance. With unsurpassed technique (and a temper to match), Cole led a forty-year American dance career like no other. Starting in modern dance, he was hired by the pioneering Denishawn troupe before a brief stint with the Humphrey-Weidman Company. He then pursued an authentic ethnic-dance education, studying Indian dance with La Meri and Uday Shankar and training in the rigorous Cecchetti ballet technique. Cole fused these discrete forms into a highly influential style formally known as "theatrical jazz dance" but more commonly called jazz. Unlike other American dancers, Cole transformed his modern dance style in commercial nightclubs where his numbers included acrobatic and angular movements with influences from India, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This unique style of dance left Cole estranged from the New York dance scene and prompted a move to California. There, he performed at the Rainbow Room on its opening night in 1934 and began a prolific new chapter in his career working in musicals, television, and film.

At the forefront of innovation, Jack Cole worked on Broadway shows like Kismet (1953) and The Ziegfeld Follies (1943), but he was arguably most successful in his choreography work on famous Hollywood films including Cover Girl (1944), Theres No Business Like Show Business (1954), Some Like It Hot (1959), and Lets Make Love (1960). Cole shepherded Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell through their breakout dance-heavy roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Monroes performance in "Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend," directed and choreographed by Cole, catapulted Monroe to stardom. And more recently this performance was one of the inspirations for Ryan Goslings "Im Just Ken" performance at the 2024 Oscars. Monroe and Cole would collaborate on five additional movie projects, Cole often uncredited and paid from Monroes pocket. Cole also worked with Gwen Verdon, Mitzi Gaynor, Rita Hayworth, and Chita Rivera and heavily influenced Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, and Michael Bennett. Yet the importance of Coles instruction was often overlooked. In 1974, Cole died of liver cancer in his home in the San Fernando Valley.

Nevertheless, his legacy persists as theatrical jazz dance remains popular in musicals, nightclubs, and music videos today. Jack Cole: A Hollywood-Dance Life, written by Debra Levine, synthesizes material from film and art archives, public events, memoirs, and interviews with Jack Cole. With unmatched research and lucid prose, Levine takes readers on a journey through Coles transitions from the modern dance scene and his nightclub debut to Hollywood and Broadway. While Levine particularly focuses on Coles film choreography career at MGM, Columbia Pictures, and Twentieth Century-Fox, this project also uncovers details of Coles personal life such as his obsessive training, struggle with depression and alcoholism, proclivity for violence, and encounters with homophobia as a gay man in midcentury America. Drawing on her visit to their shared home and personal interviews she conducted with their neighbor, Levine offers insight into Coles romantic relationship with long-time partner David Gray. Additionally, Levine gives special attention to Coles relationship with Marilyn Monroe, arguing that Cole was the secret weapon behind the actresss unprecedented success. Levine winnows fact from fiction to deliver an insightful, entertaining biography of the one person Bob Fosse admitted terrified him and who Jerome Robbins summed up as an "extraordinary dancer ravaged by his own devils"-- Provided by publisher.