Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Arthur Murray Out From His Shell

 

Arthur Murray (Moses Teichman 1895-1991) was an American ballroom dancer and businessman, whose name is most often associated with the dance studio chain that bears his name. Currently, there are approximately 180 Arthur Murray Franchised Dance Studios worldwide. Though shy as a child and self-conscious about his tall, lanky appearance, Murray won his first dance contest at the Grand Central Palace, a public dance hall where he later became a part-time dance teacher after graduation from high school. In 1920, he organized the world's first "radio dance" on the Georgia Tech campus. He devised the idea of teaching dance steps with footprint diagrams supplied by mail. Within a couple of years, over 500,000 dance courses had been sold. in 1938, the first Arthur Murray dance studio franchise was opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Murray turned to television with a dance program hosted by his wife, Kathryn, The Arthur Murray Party, which ran from 1950 to 1960.

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