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THE NEW YORKER July 10 1954 p.18
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Carol Haney, who is one of the major attractions of "The Pajama Game", an end-of-the-season senstation that, according to Variety, is "the '53-'54 legit season's sockeroo," was out with a torn ligament for a couple of weeks, and we had a convalscent talk with her in her apartment just before her return. Her role, that of a secretary more addicted to astonishing dancing than to the taking of dictation, is her first Broadway one, and comes after twenty-four years of legwork. She is five feet six, has honest blue eyes, and was born in New Bedford, where her father is employed in a bank. He is a native New Englander; her mother, who died in 1951, was Danish; Carol's first dancing lessons, at five, were given her by a French girl. "She claimed I had something that would be very great," Miss Haney said, without making any claims herself. "I know I never wanted to do anything else. That was it. I studied ballet, folk dancing, and interpretive dancing with three or four different teachers at home, and at fifteen I opened a studio of my own. I ran it after school several afternoons and evenings a week. The summer before, to finance it, I worked in a golf-ball factory. I had a hundred and twenty-five pupils. Some were only four; others were older than I was. Two days a week, I also taught dancing in Fall River, and I commuted to Providence to study ballet."
Miss Haney, who has a husky voice offstage as well as on, told us that she ran the school three years, and then, having graduated from high school, went to Hollywood and studied more ballet, nights. During the day, she worked as a waitress and soda jerker in a drugstore. She soon became a chorus dancer in San Francisco and Los Angeles night clubs. In 1944, after an audition at the Goldwyn studios, she served as one of eight girls who danced behind Danny Kaye in "Wonder Man", an early Kaye picture. "I was there three weeks before I knew where the camera was," she told us. "Then I tore the ligaments of my kneecap, and was laid up off and on for a year." More movie work followed, and more night-club work, much of it with the Jack Cole dancers, in Chicago, New York, Florida, and California. She danced in the movie versions of "On the Town" and "Kiss me Kate," and helped with the choreography of "An American in Paris" and "Singin' in the Rain". "Kiss me Kate" brought her into contact with Bob Fosse, the choreographer of "The Pajama Game". "He called me in California, from New York, in January," she said. "I was working on the choreography of 'Brigadoon'. I flew here the next weekend to read for George Abbot, flew back, finished 'Brigadoon' in three weeks, and was back here March 8th for the beginning of rehearsals."
Although Miss Haney has danced, briefly, in the Latin Quarter, under the Cole aegis, this is the first time she has actually lived in New York, and the first time she has worked in the theatre. Both experiences please her immensely. "There's nothing like the theatre," she said. "I love it. It's so great to have a live audience out there. I can't wait to get back to the show next week. I went to see it the other night. It's really good, isn't it? The pace is incredible. What a satisfaction it is to get on the stage with the lights on and beat your brains out! It's a form of insanity, I guess."
As for New York, Miss H. looks forward to investigating it. "There's so much about it I don't know," she said. "It's incredible. I've never been to the Modern Museum, or in Central Park, really, and I wouldn't know Wall Street if I fell over it. Except for 'Pajama', I haven't seen a single show here. I went to work the day after I arrived, and that was the end of me."