My mother instilled in me a love for musicals and I would watch "the oldies but goodies" when I was a young girl. I loved the romantic storylines, the beautiful voices of actresses such as Jane Powell, Alice Faye, Doris Day and Shirley Jones and actors such as Gordon MacRae ... well, he's the only one I can remember, actually, as he seemed to be in quite a few of them! Most of the musicals had dance sequences in them and before I discovered my love for ballet and jazz, I loved the dancing in the musicals not realizing then that the dancers' backgrounds were usually ballet, tap and maybe even jazz. Fred Astaire's movies weren't usually musicals but he did sing in them and he and his partner would break out in dance routines that were absolutely flawless and graceful. I remember I would read the opening credits before the movie/musical and if I saw "Choreographed by", I knew there would be some dancing in it and I looked forward to it all the more and wondered who the dancers would be. The combination of movement and music ignited something in me. I would watch glued to the screen as Fred Astaire danced with Ginger Rogers or Juliet Prowse or Gene Kelly with Leslie Caron. I also remember the smouldering Cyd Charisse and the dancing couple, Marge and Gower Champion. Favourite musicals are Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Oklahoma, West Side Story, The Sound Of Music (not much dancing in that one but the music is wonderful!), Fiddler on the Roof (another one with great music and some dance sequences), just to name a few. And if memory serves me well, I went to the cinema to watch the "That's Entertainment" movies to enjoy the song and dance numbers. In my very young mind all those years ago, Hollywood was another world, a world of make-believe and the dancers were so beautiful to watch - everything looked so "perfect" - that I of course thought dance was something unattainable, out of my reach, coupled with not being exposed to much of it during my childhood except for a few folk and ethnic dance classes and what I saw in the movies. But thanks to the creators of the dances - choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians - the dancers on the silver screen will always be remembered for the beauty and joy they bring into our lives, if only for those few minutes as we watch them glide, twirl and leap across the screen.