Sunny Parich: What does it take to be a dancer?

Tony Charmoli: We're always in pain. But we knew what caused the pain so it was good pain. So when a dancer complains that it hurts -- it hurts. That's all right. They know why it hurts. And you suffer the hurt because the passion says you must do this. And if you don't have that passion, take up plumbing or do something else.

SP: When did you first hear about television?

TC: We got a group of about four or five guys who were in the tap class to go down to the Sam Wannemaker building in New York, because they were going to do a television test. They wanted moving objects -- so they thought well, the dancers are moving objects. And we got down there and they said: "You can have this much room. "And there was a big camera in front of us. It looked like a washing machine, and then there were banks of lights. Hot, right up next to us, so we said: "We're gonna dance in this?" We were ringing wet before we even do a step....And we thought it'll never work. I mean, performers can't stand this heat.

SP: Tell me about "Your Hit Parade."

TC: When BBD&O agency decided to do a television version of that same show of course they needed a choreographer. So there was a man who, his name was Hugh Rodgers, who obviously had watched "Stop the Music." And he became a big champion of mine. He said, that guy who was doing that show is what we need for the Hit Parade. Because we're gonna do it every week, he's gonna have to have new numbers, new dances, every week, many different ideas, that's who we need. The powers that be at BBD&O thought differently. They thought they should have a very established choreographer like Jerry Robins or Michael Kidd. And even June Taylor from the Jackie Gleason show -- all reputable choreographers. But he said: "No way. We need somebody who can do it now, and deliver dances right away." And he kept it up and kept it up, and I came aboard and we did the first show -- it was a smash. I stayed with it for five years.

SP: Compare choreographing for the theater with choreographing for television.

TC: A world of difference. When you go to the theater you buy your ticket and you sit right in that seat, and you look at the stage and it all happens for you. But now the camera can do it for you, in many ways. They can look at that same item, four different angles. So why not choreograph for the camera?...If you stay on the wide shot or a master shot for the whole duration of the dance, my experience has been that you lose the energy of the dance. You see these little objects moving, but you don't feel those muscles and don't feel the dynamo that's in that body that's expressing all this unless you see the face say it, and the buttocks say it, and the torso say it. You've got to cut in and see all of that, just see the energy and the sweat that's going. The vibration that's coming out of all that.

SP: How do you work with your dancers?

TC: I generally do the stuff myself first. And, in a way, they imitate often if they're just a dancer. If they're a true dancer they will take it and make it their own.

SP: How would you like to be remembered?

TC: Probably as somebody who was put on this earth to bring joy and beauty and happiness via television and theater, through performers, through our stars. I hope I've succeeded or will have succeeded.