Frank Manning, now eighty-three, was one of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers from 1936 to 1941. Frank began dancing as a child, and by the time he was sixteen he was winning contests and almost professional. He came in third place in the first Harvest Moon Ball in 1936, and second place in the one the following year. He became Whitey's righthand man and chief choreographer and with Whitey's group toured the world and appeared in the films Hellzapoppin'' and the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races in the 1940's. During the war he put together shows to entertain the troops. After the war he toured the U.S. with his own group, The Congaroos, with the bands of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. Frank originated many of the aerial steps by taking floor steps one step further. He originated "the tops," freezing in the middle of a number and then continuing on, to the song "Posin'." He also did the first Lindy routine which was danced by more than one couple doing the same steps at the same time. He is a winner of the Tony Award for Black & Blue.

He believes in seeing a step and changing it and taking it one step further. He doesn't believe in a right and a wrong way to do a step. When choreographing, he choreographed for each individual dancer and let each couple do their own special steps instead of forcing everyone to be the same. Frank Manning has an incredible amount of energy and a great love for dancing. He is threatened by no one. He is open and generous and takes everyone in without criticism. Frank is a natural performer. When he dances everybody watches. His early performing experience,his active mind, and his years of dancing give him a wealth of material to draw upon. He constantly creates new routines and uses them as little sections in his social dancing. Performing and social dancing are one and the same to him. He'll call out "points" or "tango dip," and he and his partner will go into a 16-count sequence they have memorized. His repertoire is full of such sequences and they are interesting to watch. Steady partners get to know more and more of these routines, which he may call out at any point in the dance that he wishes. It is like writing in phrases instead of words. He uses the basics as linking steps. Frank moves across the room - forward, backwards, side by side, circling, circling backwards, hopping, skipping - with a powerful energy that conquers the whole room. His posture is generally low to the floor, his head bowed and his left leg kicking away so that his whole torso is parallel- to the floor at times. His style is bouncy, in the vertical-plane. (None of the four I'm describing here uses a sidewards rocking of the torso. Most hold their torsos calm, isolating them from their hips and legs. Charlie does a slight torso rock, but not like you see beginners or 50's rock'n'rollers do.) Frank uses a double bounce, a bounce on every beat of the music. He dances with a strong lead; the woman has no option but to follow, or be wrong. He dances to the beat of the music and to the mood of the music. His posture changes with his interpretation of the mood. He dances saying something with his movements, something witty, some dance talk - a variation on the rhythm, doing a number of swing-outs with different syncopations at the end of each one, or a new posture, or facing or way of coming in. He is innovative and always thinking and playing around.

This man has more energy and enjoyment of life than most twenty-year-olds. His personality and sense of humor exude from him as he dances, but also as he talks and laughs and goes through his animated antic. He is a publlc, visible, and generous man, and this comes out in his dancing, through a generous use of space and a generous use of his smile, which beams for miles and miles.

(This article is from the Library of Congress Website)