Gregory Hines, I miss you.

On February 14, most of us will be either romancing it up or grumbling about how everyone seems to be romancing it up. But in case you have nothing planned, I suggest that you take an hour or two and make a deep dive into the work and life of Gregory Hines. Hines would have been 73 on this Valentine's Day, and if he were still alive, I believe he would still be dancing.

Hines was a phenomenal tapper. He also existed at a moment when tap was in a bit of a downturn. Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and well into the 1950s, tap dance was a staple of Broadway and the movies. Busby Berkeley was obsessed with filming mass tap numbers such as this one from Lullaby of Broadway. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers inserted tap breaks into their famous quick step. By the 1950s, TV viewers would have the chance to be entertained by the Mastin Trio, whose most famous member was Sammy Davis, Jr. Even Bob Fosse, before he become entirely associated with his signature style, tap danced his way through this obscure piece of cinema.

But if you watch that last clip, from My Sister Eileen (1955), you can see that hoofing is giving way to a more balletic style of dance. With the rise ballet trained director/choreographers of the 1960s, tap was pushed to the sidelines. Hines was born in 1946. He was a performer from his earliest days, dancing in venues that also hosted the famous Nicholas Brothers. But he was a young man in these dark days of tap, and there just wasn't as much work, even for a phenom. By the 1970s and 1980s, Hines had become more known as a comedian than a dancer. I will wager than many of us who remember him as Josephus in The History of the World, part 1, in 1981 never thought about his dancing, even though he was maintaining a career on Broadway at the same time. Then in 1984, Hines was featured in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club. His solo turn, set as a counterpoint to the final violent mob hit, showed three things - that Hines the actor was capable of more than broad comedy, that tap could be far more than light entertainment, and that Hines the dancer had something of which the movie-going public wanted MORE.

In 1985, Hines starred along with Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights. For me, one significance of the movie was that it took place in a contemporary timeframe. Unlike The Cotton Club, where tap dance was still firmly placed in the past, White Nights was a classic Cold War drama. Hines played Raymond Greenwood, a disaffected Vietnam War veteran, who - having defected to Soviet Union to escape racism in the US - finds himself babysitting the diva ballerino Nikolai Rodchenko. Let's be honest - I haven't seen this movie in years, and my guess is that the politics (and the music) might seem dated, but the dancing is THE BOMB. Ballet from Misha, tap dance from Hines, a jazz scene where they both break out of their core styles, a Siberian Porgy and Bess, and of course the famous 11 pirouettes.

In the years that followed, Hines continued to make movies and appear on television, mostly in non-dancing roles. He continued to tap on stage, and lived to see the resurgence of tap on Broadway, including his own starring turn in Jelly's Last Jam, for which he was nominated for two Tony awards: Best Actor in a Musical and Best Choreography (he won for acting). He also became a teacher and mentor, literally playing the older version of Jelly Roll Morton while the new kid on the Broadway block, Savion Glover, took the role of "Young Jelly."

A generation younger than the famous hoofers of the last days of vaudeville, a generation older than the young bloods who brought us Bring in 'Da Noise/Bring in 'Da Funk, Hines was a practically a one-man tap bridge through the late-20th century. He died in 2003. I miss you, Mr. Hines. And thank you.