To all dancers, dance enthusiasts and tap dancers, join us in celebrating the Birthday of Hermes Pan today 12/10/1909.
Born in Memphis Tennessee as Hermes Panagiotopoulosas, of Greek heritage, an American dancer and choreographer, principally remembered as Fred Astaire’s choreographic collaborator on the famous 1930s film musicals starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Pan’s career began with an appearance as a chorus boy in the 1928 Animal Crackers, a Broadway production by the Marx Brothers. He also danced in partnership with his sister Vasso, who subsequently appeared in the chorus of many of the Astaire-Rogers pictures. He first met Ginger Rogers in 1930, appearing as a chorus singer in the Broadway musical Top Speed.
He first meeting with Astaire, whom he physically resembled, when he was on the set of the 1933 film Flying Down To RIo, in which he worked as an assistant to dance director Dave Gould.
The two began a lifelong professional collaboration and friendship which included all the RKO Astaire pictures, including A Damsel In Distress – 1937 for which he was awarded the 1937 Academy Award for Best Dance Direction adding to his previous receipt of Academy Award nominations for the Top Hat and The Piccolino numbers from the 1935 film Top Hat and for the Bojangles of Harlem number from the 1936 film Swing Time.
Their collaboration involved 17 out of Astaire’s 31 musical films and three of his four television specials. Astaire referred to Pan his ideas man. Astaire greatly valued Pan’s assistance not just as a source and critic of ideas, but more importantly as a rehearsal partner for fine-tuning routines. and a rehearsing partner to Ginger Rogers.
Pan’s first on-screen appearance is as a clarinetist during the Astaire-Goddard routine I Ain’t Hep To That Step But I’ll Dig It from the 1940 film Second Chorus, and dressed as The Ghost in the deleted Astaire-Pan routine Me and the Ghost Upstairs from the same film. He appeared with Betty Grable in 1941 film Moon Over Miami and the 1943 film Coney Island. His longest filmed dance routine is a complex tap duet with Betty Grable in 1942 film Footlight Serenade –Watch the clip – He also appeared with Rita Hayworth in the 1942 film My Gal Sal. In both of these films he had non-speaking dancing roles and acted as choreographer.
When Pan was not working with Astaire, he was still in much demand as a choreographer throughout Hollywood musicals golden era, most notably in the 1952 Lovely To Look At and the 1953 Kiss Me Kate in which Bob Fosse also choreographed and danced.
He won an Emmy Award for the 1958 television special An Evening With Fred Astaire and was recognized with a National Film Award in 1980, also recognized by the Joffrey Ballet in 1986.