Vilma Ebsen

Background

Ebsen was born in Belleville, Illinois. She learned to dance at her father"s dance studio in Orlando, Florida, in the 1920s.

Career

During her childhood, her family relocated to Florida. Vilma and Buddy Ebsen moved to New York in 1928, where they formed a vaudeville acting One of their first appearances together was in Eddie Cantor"s Ziegfeld production, Whoopee.

When Whoopee closed after a year and a half, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen took their act to Atlantic City, where they caught the eye of celebrity columnist Walter Winchell.

A one-paragraph rave in Winchell"s column lifted the Ebsens from obscurity. Vilma and Buddy Ebsen performed their dance act on Broadway, as well as around the United States in vaudeville theatres and supper clubs throughout the early 1930s.

Some of the Broadway productions they starred in were Flying Colors (1932) and Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. They came to Hollywood in 1935, where Vilma Ebsen starred in one film, playing Sally Burke in Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935).

After the success of Broadway Melody of 1936, the studio decided to separate the Ebsens.

Back in New York, she appeared in one more Broadway musical comedy, Between the Devil, with British dancing stars Jack Buchanan, Evelyn Laye, and Adele Dixon. This show ran from December 22, 1937, until March 12, 1938. She then retired from show business to become a full-time homemaker.

She and Dolan moved to Pacific Palisades, California, in 1941.

They had one child, a son named Robert, but later divorced in January 1948. They also had a son, Michael.

Another was Arthur Mahoney, a ballet master from New New York The school offered lessons in tap, jazz, ballet, and ballroom dance.

lieutenant also gave annual dance recitals and cotillions at the Riveria Country Club, Deauville Beach Club, and other notable venues.

The Ebsen Dance Studio was in a large two story building on Swarthmore Drive, and Vilma and Helga lived in a house behind the studio. The studio had a large room below and several smaller dance rooms above. The studio staged a community theatre production of "Teahouse of the August Moon" circa 1960, but thereafter discontinued its community theatre and dismantled the stage to enlarge the space into a larger dance area.

She died at the age of 96 in Thousand Oaks, California.

Connections

teachers:

Robert Dolan