Charles Coles

For other people named Charles Coles, see Charles Coles (disambiguation).
Charles Coles
BornApril 2, 1911
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 12, 1992(1992-11-12) (aged 81)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Tap dancer, actor
Years active1940–1992
Spouse
Marion Edwards Coles (1915–2009)
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(m. 1944)​

Charles "Honi" Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor and tap dancer, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical precision, high-speed tapping, and a close-to-the-floor style where "the legs and feet did the work".[1] Coles was also half of the professional tap dancing duo Coles and Atkins, whose specialty was performing with elegant style through various tap steps such as "swing dance", "over the top", "bebop", "buck and wing", and "slow drag".[1]

He appeared in the films The Cotton Club and Dirty Dancing, as well as the documentary Great Feats of Feet.[2][3] Coles was also a tap-dancing companion of tap dancer Brenda Bufalino, the founder and director of the American Tap Dance Foundation. During his career, Coles was awarded the Dance Magazine Award in 1985, the Capezio Award for lifetime achievement in dance in 1988, and the National Medal of the Arts by President George H. W. Bush in 1991.[2] He was a tap mentor who believed, "If you can walk, you can tap."[2] Coles advocated for the development of tap dance and often claimed that "tap dance was the only dance art form that America could claim as its own".[2]

  1. ^ a b Hill, Valis Constance (2014). Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History. New: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190225384.
  2. ^ a b c d Hill, Valis Constance. "Charles "Honi" Coles [biography]." In Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media, Library of Congress, accessed May 4, 2022, https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.tdabio.43/default.html
  3. ^ "Great Feats of Feet". Great Feats of Feet / The Copasetics [television/video]. Library of Congress. 1977.