Bill Robinson

'Bill Robinson' (qv) quit school at age seven and began work as a professional dancer the following year. Bojangles (the name referred to his happy-go-lucky ebullience) starred in vaudeville, musical stage and movies. He invented the stair tap routine and was considered one of the world's greatest tap dancers. His film debut was in _Dixiana (1930)_ (qv). He worked in fifteen movies, but his movie fame came primarily from the films he made with 'Shirley Temple' (qv) -- _The Little Colonel (1935)_ (qv), _The Littlest Rebel (1935)_ (qv), and _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)_ (qv). In 1989 the US Congress named his birth date as National Tap Dancing Day.::Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>