Having worked with some of this century’s greatest musical theatre and film artists, when Jim Hutchison talks about show business, he knows whereof he speaks. Long-time Hawaii resident and one of the islands’ leading theatre and dance personalities, Hutchison discussed the path his life has taken with this reporter. I asked first how he got involved in dance.

“My mother was a frustrated performer,” he responded. “Her father had played fiddle for local square dances.” Growing up outside Little Rock, Arkansas with a sister and two brothers, Jim was the child destined to perform. But his mother’s wishes were dashed at first.

“She took me to Dorothy Donelson’s Dance School in Little Rock when I was four. The teacher got frustrated and hit me, so I kicked him. I didn’t go back until I was ten, and then it was only because there was a pretty little blonde girl they wanted me to dance with. I studied with Miss Dorothy as well as Jimmy Sutton who was quite a good dancer.”

At age sixteen he and his blonde partner entered and won a talent contest put on by Horace Heidt’s Original Youth Opportunity Program. They were invited to join Heidt’s touring show for the summer. “We had to travel to Los Angeles and live on his ranch in Van Nuys. One of the choreographers for the show was Luigi. We did everything: tap, jazz and ballroom.”

After the summer tour ended, Hutchison returned to Arkansas to finish high school. “In my senior year another kid, a real hoofer, Neil Hutton, and I teamed up and did a pantomime/tap dance routine. We’d go to a truck stop in North Little Rock and put money in the jukebox and jam, and the truck drivers would throw us coins.”

Following high school Hutchison enrolled in Southern Methodist University in Dallas, but before the semester ended his father died and he was forced to return home to Arkansas. Once back home, the family asked what he wanted to do with his life. Having just seen Gene Kelly in “American in Paris,” he responded “I want to do what he does,” referring to Kelly. “Fred Astaire made it OK for men to dance, but you never felt like you could do that without lots of lessons. But watching Gene Kelly, you felt like it was possible,” Hutchison explained.

 With the family’s encouragement and support, he moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where his former teacher Jimmy Sutton, had opened a dance school. There he met ballet teacher, Alexi Ramov, née Joseph Kowatch, a former Ballet Russe dancer who once studied with George Balanchine. Ramov convinced him he had to study ballet if he wanted to go to New York.

 In order to pay for his ballet classes Hutchison taught children tap on Saturday mornings. Soon, however, his life changed drastically. “Ramov got me an audition with Muriel Stuart at the School of American Ballet. They gave me a scholarship so I went to New York and started taking about nine ballet classes a week at the school. I also took outside tap classes with a guy named ‘Carlos.’ It was rhythm tap, and I loved it. But I couldn’t afford to keep it up.”

 When the School of American Ballet found out he was taking classes elsewhere, they gave him the choice to keep his scholarship but study exclusively at their school, or to give up the scholarship and leave. “When I found out how much ballet dancers earned versus Broadway dancers ($50 a week versus $80 a week), I told them I’d give up the scholarship.”

 With little means of support, Hutchison auditioned for every show casting dancers and soon landed a role. “The first show I did after moving to New York was a road show revival of ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’ It only lasted about three months, but the great thing about it was that [Honi] Coles and [Cholly] Atkins were in it, dressed in white tails and shoes. Every other show I auditioned for wasn’t doing tap.

“I did one Jackie Gleason television show with the June Taylor Dancers. Then I auditioned for Bob Fosse for ‘Pajama Game.’ My partner in the chorus was Shirley MacLaine. She understudied Carol Haney, and I understudied Buzz Miller. This was my first show on Broadway. It was produced by Hal Prince [his first Broadway show], directed by George Abbott with musical staging by Jerome Robbins and choreography by Fosse. After six weeks I took over for Buzz who left the show. Eddie Foy, Jr. was in the show and would practice single wings offstage. He had the loosest ankles I’ve ever seen.”

Hutchison’s career took off. After a year and a half in “Pajama Game” he left to join a small group working with the legendary Jack Cole (choreographer of “Kismet”). “I danced with Cole for four years,” he explained. The group spent eight weeks performing a night club act at the Havana Riviera shortly before Castro took over. Hutchison also worked with Cole on television shows and in the Broadway musicals “Kean,” starring Alfred Drake and “Ziegfield Follies” with Tallulah Bankhead.

During those years jazz was the style of choreography used in most Broadway shows. Tap had not yet had its great renaissance. Whenever he was in New York Hutchison continued studying dance, attending jazz classes taught by Matt Mattox, Peter Gennaro and Frank Wagner.

“I worked with Luigi in ‘Happy Hunting’ which starred Ethel Merman and Fernando Lamas. Then I did a CBS television show with Gene Kelly called ‘Dancing is a Man’s Game.’ He took sports moves and turned them into dance. In one scene Sugar Ray Robinson, the boxer, tapped with Gene, and we danced in the background.”

Hutchison also appeared in all the major television shows featuring musical numbers. Those included the Ed Sullivan Show, Omnibus, Camera Three, the Bell Telephone Hour and shows hosted by Perry Como, Patti Page, Steve Allen and Pat Boone.

After thirteen years in New York, Hutchison, by then married, left for Los Angeles where both he and his wife had been promised jobs. It was the late 1960s and musical films were still being produced. The choreographer Hugh Lambert offered him work as his assistant on a Disney film, “The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band” which featured a tap dancing Walter Brennan. 

During the four years he was in California he worked with numerous stars and two of his idols, Astaire and Kelly, appearing in the films “Finian’s Rainbow”(directed by Francis Ford Coppola,  choreography by Hermes Pan and starring Fred Astaire), “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (starring Julie Andrews with Carol Channing, Bea Lillie and Mary Tyler Moore, choreography by Joe Layton), “Hello Dolly” (starring Barbra Streisand, directed by Gene Kelly with choreography by Michael Kidd), and “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” (with Streisand and Yves Montand, directed by Vincent Minelli) in which Streisand especially chose Hutchison to partner her in a dance sequence which unfortunately didn’t make the final cut.

By 1971 it looked like the era of film musicals was about to end so, with an offer of employment in Hawaii, Hutchison and his wife moved to Honolulu. As it turned out, the offer was a misunderstanding forcing the couple to accept any jobs that came along. Hutchison directed a fashion show, staged acts for comedians and singers, and choreographed plays, musicals and Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” with the Honolulu Symphony.

The following year then Mayor of Honolulu, Frank Fasi, invited Hutchison to help form the Honolulu Ballet Company (now known as Ballet Hawaii, one of the state’s leading companies). Since that time Hutchison’s career has continued to develop and unfold in a variety of directions. In 1974 he became Artistic Director of the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), a leading producer of musicals in Hawaii. “I directed, choreographed and sometimes performed there for eighteen years,” he says proudly.

Among his many undertakings are productions he either choreographed, directed or staged for television commercials, stage plays, Fourth of July celebrations, balls, fundraisers, etc. He also appeared as an actor in six episodes of the eternally popular “Hawaii 5-O”, several appearances on “Magnum P.I.” , “Blood and Orchids”, and national and local commercials.  This past December he appeared as Drosselmeyer in Ballet Hawaii’s production of “Nutcracker”,

Hutchison taught dance four years at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Eventually, he returned to his teaching tap dancing. For the past ten years the classes have been held at Ballet Hawaii’s studios in the historic Dole Cannery Building.  He also performed Morton Gould’s “Concerto for Tap”  with the Honolulu Symphony.

When asked to sum up his life, Hutchison said, “I’m glad I did all I did. I feel like I was in a MGM musical  from the time I got to New York until now. I’ve had the opportunity to “do some takes”  with some fabulous people.”