Frankie Manning Passed Away This Morning - Sad News
I just read on Mugsy's twitter stream that Frankie Manning pased away. He was 95 years old and inspired millions of people to learn to dance, shim sham and lindy hop. He was both an icon of dance in America and a role model for us all in how to live a fulfilling long life.
I went to the annual swing camp in on Catalina Island back in 1999 early in my swing discovery and lifestyle. We were traveling all the way from Chicago to this tiny island off the coast of California to take classes and go to dances with the largest group of lindy hoppers we had ever heard of.
That was where I first saw Franke Manning and began to learn about the story of how he became the inspiration for so many people in Lindy Hop. (among other fantastic classes and events that week) Franke Manning was in several movies and traveled with Whitey's Lindy Hoppers for many years until the swing trend slowed down.
Then he went to work for the post office for 30 years. Nobody remembered that he was a dancer until some people dug up some old film footage in the early 1990's and found him living in New York City.
They slowly convinced him to teach them to lindy hop and they went and started the swing camp and spreading the gospel of sorts. Now millions of people swing dance better because someone who really knew the dance could tell them how, rather than just guessing from watching a video.
Maybe we all have a purpose in continuing life here on this planet and maybe the world needed Lindy Hop. That was Frankie Manning's mission to bring it to all corners of the world. He will be missed.
This is a clip from Frankie Manning's most famous Lindy Hop dance sequence in the movie Hellzapoppin (1941).