Vilma Ebsen, 96, Buddy’s Broadway Partner

Vilma Ebsen, who died March 12 at 96, was a Broadway hoofer who appeared in several shows as the song and dance partner of her brother, Buddy Ebsen.While few today may think of the hillbilly Jed Clampett as an accomplished ballroom dancer, the truth was that the Ebsen siblings grew up in a dancing family and, when times got tough, they took the family business on the road. At one time, their vaudeville and nightclub act was known as “the poor man’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.” In the Depression, it probably counted as a compliment.After several years in the chorus in shows like Flo Ziegfeld’s “Whoopie” (1928), the Ebsens hit the big time after Walter Winchell’s secretary, Ruth Cambridge, spotted them dancing in an Atlantic City nightclub to the song “Ain’t Misbehavin.'” After Winchell puffed them in his column, they were hired for the Broadway revue “Flying Colors” (1932). (Buddy later married Ruth Cambridge.)Brooks Atkinson doted on the Ebsens as a “joyously youthful pair,” but called Buddy an “apple-knocking bohunk” — even then he appeared the rube.Two years later, the pair was back as featured dancers in “Ziegfeld Follies of 1934.” In 1935, they went to Hollywood to make “Broadway Melody of 1936,” their only turn on film together. They particularly shone in the number “Sing Before Breakfast,” dancing on brownstone rooftops beside Eleanor Powell.Buddy Ebsen stayed in Hollywood, where he was an immediate success, dancing with Shirley Temple in “Captain January” (1936) and several other films. Vilma’s son Robert told the Los Angeles Times, “Her story was that Louis B. Mayer said, ‘I could make you the next Myrna Loy.’ She looked at Mayer and said, ‘I don’t want to be the next Myrna Loy. I’m Vilma Ebsen.'”Vilma returned to New York, where her husband, Robert Emmett Dolan, was a Broadway composer and conductor.In 1937, she appeared in the Broadway musical comedy “Between the Devil.” After returning briefly to the night circuit with Buddy during a break in his movie career, she gave birth to her son Robert in 1939.The family moved to Los Angeles, where Dolan was in great demand as a composer and music director, starting with “Birth of the Blues” (1941). He was nominated for an Oscar seven times. The couple divorced in 1948.Teaming with her sister, Helga, and with financial backing from Buddy, Vilma in 1943 opened the Ebsen School of Dancing in Pacific Palisades, where she taught tap and ballet to generations of young dancers. In 1956, there was press speculation that she and Buddy would team up for a new dance tour, but nothing came of it. The Ebsens had an in-joke small-screen reunion in one episode of the “Beverly Hillbillies” when Jed and Granny watched a scene of Buddy and Vilma dancing in “Broadway Melody” of 1936.Vilma, whose father was the Florida state supervisor of the Dancing Masters of America, was an acute observer of dance. “There’s something about dancing which makes equals of prince and pauper,” she told the Daily News in 1937. “It’s the most democratic of all arts. Thus one who might easily become an introvert through brooding over social impotence has a great opportunity in dancing to normalize himself.”Vilma EbsenBorn February 1, 1911, in Belleville, Ill.; died March 12 at a Los Angeles hospital; survived by her sons, Robert Dolan and Michael Briggs, two granddaughters, and four great-grandchildren.

Vilma Ebsen, 96, Buddy’s Broadway Partner

Vilma Ebsen, 96, Buddy’s Broadway Partner

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