Remembering Jose Greco--Ambassador of the Spanish Dance.

Jose Greco knew how to turn on an audience. In an October 1999 interview, I asked him what it was that his fans saw in his dancing. The handsome octogenarian said without a moment's hesitation: "The men wanted to be me and the women wanted to have me!"

Exaggeration? Perhaps. But there is no denying that in his thirty-year career as a dancer and choreographer, Greco's intensity and sexuality excited audiences around the world. With the energy and passion of an evangelist, Jose Greco, who died December 31, brought Spanish dance into the mainstream of popular culture.

Often mistaken for a Spaniard, Constanzo Jose Greco was born in Italy (the year has been variously reported as 1917 and--by Greco himself--1918) and raised in Brooklyn. When he accompanied his sister, Norina, to her dance class taught by the popular Spanish teacher Helen Veola, Greco's natural gift for imitating and executing complex foot patterns caught Veola's attention. She immediately offered him a scholarship. He was 16 when the choreographer for a new production of the opera La Traviata in Manhattan came to the school looking for talent. Greco was cast in the opera's party scene. His debut performance lasted less than two minutes.

"The applause roared through the enormous Hippodrome Theater, and I loved it," he recalled. "Later, in the dressing room, I was handed an envelope that contained seven dollars.

"`What's this?' I asked.

"`It's your fee,' they told me.

"Seven dollars for less than two minutes? I tried to imagine what it would be like to dance on stage for an hour. I decided there on the spot that this is what I wanted to do the rest of my life."

Greco continued to take classes and study with talented young dancers who had just arrived from Spain. As his dance technique improved, so did his knowledge of the stylistic variations of the Basque, Andalusian and Northeastern regions of Spain.

In his early 20s, Greco supported himself dancing in cabarets and running show tickets for a Broadway scalper. Greco would often slip into the theater with the crowds and quickly developed a love for the stage.

"I didn't realize it then, but I was absorbing everything that I saw. Later, I applied all these elements of theater to my own shows. I was fascinated with lighting, costumes and staging and the contrast between one production and another. The dramatic shows, in particular, gave me the idea to add suspense to my performances. I'd purposefully create tension on the stage and then I'd present the hero, which of course was me," he said with a laugh.

In 1942, the fabled Spanish dancer La Argentinita, known for her purity of style, invited Greco to be her partner. He now became part of New York's inner circle of top dance celebrities.

After La Argentinita's death in 1945, Greco established his own dance company, Ballet y Bailes de Espana de Jose Greco, with his second wife and partner, Nila Amparo. He would spend the next six years touring Europe and developing the Greco performance style. In 1951, Lee Shubert, owner of the Shubert Theaters, noticed Greco in a film, Manolete, and offered him a six-month contract to appear in Shubert's U.S. theaters. By the time Greco returned to America from Europe, Shubert had done advance publicity and Greco was an international sensation.

From the start, Greco was a consummate showman with an intuitive grasp of his audience who tailored his shows to specific venues and circumstances. For example, he would never put a duet or trio in a nightclub; nightclubs required lively, glitz-filled numbers. But whatever the venue, Greco had a dance for it. From the late 1940s to early 1970, he and his company of twenty dancers, most of them from Spain, performed in football stadiums, theaters, nightclubs, Las Vegas showrooms, on television and in films (including Sombrero, Around the World in 80 Days, and Ship of Fools). He was a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. If he had to cut a dance from five minutes to two rather then be pre-empted on television, he'd do it. It was better, he said, "to be seen than make a scene over the length of a dance."

Greco had no illusions about his career as a dancer and choreographer. "I was very famous, a household name, but I really didn't see myself as the best dancer that there ever was. I knew I could improve technically, but I always tried to dance the best way I knew how," he said. Likewise, he was candid about some of the dances he created: "I had a lot of turkeys in my choreographic life."

The Dance of the Horseman, on the other hand, became Greco's signature piece. The idea came to him while on location in southern Spain, when he noticed four horsemen galloping majestically into the sunset.

"I was so moved, so inspired, that I decided to create a tribute to the Spanish horseman through the dance," he said. "My choreography imitated the thunderous galloping of the horses through rapid footwork. I held myself erect with pride and dignity. My costume included high boots, tight trousers with short jacket and sombrero."

Said Carla Luna, who danced with the company in 1970, "Greco was completely committed to the authenticity of the dances. He routinely invited Spain's greatest dancers [such as El Farucco and Matilde Coral] to guest star in his company, exposing them to new audiences and bringing the most current dances to the stage. He added theatrical elements to the shows only to present them more effectively. Presentation, staging and lighting meant everything to him. In two separate performances, I miscalculated my entrance, and in both cases I was terrified Greco would fire me on the spot."

Greco retired from performing in 1974, but returned to the stage occasionally from 1988 to 1995 to perform in the companies of three of his six children, who became successful dancers. His daughter Lola Greco enjoys a fine reputation in her own right as a Spanish dancer. Jose Greco II tours his company nationally and internationally, carrying on his father's choreography and the tradition of Spanish dance.

In 1993, Greco accepted a teaching position at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his fifth wife, Ana, until his death.

Rose Eichenbaum is a Los Angeles-based contributing photographer to Dance Magazine.