Marge Champion

A celebrated dancer, actress, and choreographer of stage, screen and TV, Marge Champion, together with her then-husband and partner Gower Champion, excelled at the "story dance," a combination of dance and pantomime, which they performed to great renown on Broadway, in several films, and on such TV programs as "The Broadway Admiral Revue" (NBC, 1949). Champion was the daughter of Ernest Belcher, a ballet coach for Hollywood stars. In 1936, she performed with the Los Angeles Civic Opera in several productions, often before as many as 23,000 people. Soon thereafter, she was a human figure model for the heroine of Disney's animated "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), and later modeled for the blue fairy in "Pinocchio" (1940). Then known as Marjorie Bell, she also made her film debut in "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" (1939), although it was Ginger Rogers who danced with Fred Astaire.