The dancer, actor, teacher and director James E. Hibbard discusses his new memoir Can’t Stop Dancing (BearManor Media, 2024), with Joseph Planta.

Can’t Stop Dancing by James E. Hibbard (BearManor Media, 2024). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Can’t Stop Dancing

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.  

For over sixty-five years now, James Hibbard has worked as professional dancer, singer, actor, director, writer and teacher. He can add writer to his many personal and professional achievements as he’s just published a new memoir, Can’t Stop Dancing. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and fell in love with the movies, especially the dancing. His parents notice his talent and skill, and nurture it with lessons two and a half hours away in Boise, Idaho. Soon, his mother takes him to Los Angeles for further study, and seeing Hollywood as he writes about it in the book, provides for a charming view into a company town in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Soon he gets his start in movies, dancing in the film version of Gypsy, starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood. That’s followed by Bye Bye Birdie with Ann-Margret, a number of films with Elvis Presley, and Hello, Dolly! directed by his childhood idol Gene Kelly. Throughout there’s television work, as well as theatre and nightclubs. But he moves permanently to Vancouver in the 1970s, and soon a whole new life as well as professional vistas open for Jim and his family. Jim, who joins me now has worked with everybody, and it’s very tempting to just throw out a name and get his reaction or experience with some famed show business personality. But the book is more than just name-dropping. You get as sense of the hard work artisans like Jim go through when working in the glamourous business of show, in Hollywood especially at the height and the decline of the movie musical. We see in Canada how he rises with the increase in film and television production in Vancouver. In the book, we get that very Vancouver story of somebody who falls in love with the city the first time they arrive. That happened for Jim in the mid-1960s when he came to do a production of West Side Story produced by Hugh Pickett and directed by Aida Broadbent. On that run, he met his wife, Charlene Brandolini, who herself has deep roots in Vancouver history. I spoke to Jim last week, who joined me from his home in the Okanagan. This new memoir is published by BearManor Media. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jim Hibbard; Mr. Hibbard, good morning.  

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