Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
2008-04-24
Section: Metro; Page: B2 FORT WORTH — Eighty-six-year-old Larry Howard has asthma and arthritis, so the one-time Casa Mañana dancing wizard has to use a walker at times. But he hasn't put away his dancing shoes.

He remains full of energy and serves as a guest teacher for North Texas dance groups, a choreographer for local shows and an artistic consultant at dance programs.

"My bones are gone," Howard said one recent afternoon from his southwest Fort Worth apartment. "But I love dancing, and as long as I can, I'm going to be around it."

Howard, born Edward Lawrence Drinkwater in Highland Park, Mich., has tapped and turned on stages from coast to coast. It began at age 9.

"My sister was going to a dance class, and I just tagged along," Howard said. "I danced in one class; a teacher saw me and called my parents. That teacher said I needed to be dancing."

Within months, Howard was dancing in vaudeville shows.

"I danced in junior high and in high school, and I finally told my parents, 'Don't spend money on college because I'm dancing,'" he said.

Back then, dance classes cost about $3.50 a month. Today, they can start at $50 a session, he said.

Along the way, he added singing and acting to his repertoire. As a teenager, he appeared in the Andy Hardy movie series and on the Dr Pepper Radio Hour.

"I was at the Copacabana [in New York] one night as a solo dancer, and I thought I had really made it when I looked out into the crowd and I noticed that no one was looking at me," Howard said. "They were all looking up toward a door. There was Marilyn Monroe. That kind of put me in my place."

Later he was a featured dancer on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and the Colgate Comedy Hour. His Broadway credits include Damn Yankees, Ankles Aweigh, Wish You Were Here, Rumple, The Boy Friend and By the Beautiful Sea.

He worked with legendary choreographers and directors Bob Fosse and Gower Champion, and director-producer George Abbott.

In 1958, Howard turned his sights to Fort Worth, a city he had not heard of.

Friend and soon-to-be business partner Ed Holleman, a Texas Christian University graduate, asked Howard to do a show with him at the Fort Worth Stock Show. The two were companions until Holleman died last year.

Within months, they opened a dance studio, and they were onstage when Casa Mañana opened in the summer of 1958. For the next 30 years, they were staples of the North Texas dancing community. Among their students was Broadway star Betty Buckley.

Howard's love for dance continues to motivate him.

"From the neck down I'm 86," he said. "But from the neck up, I'm 35."

 

ramirez@star-telegram.com DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR., 817-685-3822
Larry Howard teaches tap at Frances Lea Dance Center in Fort Worth this month.

STAR-TELEGRAM/JEFFERY WASHINGTON