Ron Fletcher Scrapbook

So I brought a number of Fletcher goodies with me from Tucson and, uh, I felt like a mule or you see them all on the plane with me. Um, and, and these are really gems. Um, when, when Ron passed away, I ended up with many, many, many boxes. And, um, so this is just some of the, the gems of the chems and, um, I just wanted to go through it and show you Kristy and David is here with us also. This, um, this is Ron's copy of returned to life. So it's the original copy. It's um, I don't know when it was published, but that's a hard cover. I've never seen a hard, hard cover. Huh. Please, please. Oh, Ron lead. Sure. Yeah. Wow. Beautiful.

And then this book is, um, this is Ron Spock and this was his copy of his book. Everybody is beautiful and it was covered and gifted to him by Allie McGraw and Candice Bergen. So, um, inside the cover it says Merry Christmas, 1978 to Dyrus Ron from alien candy with love. Who, whose handwriting was that? Can you tell? I don't know. I think that's probably alley's handwriting. And, and just tell us a little about the book itself. Sure.

The book was published in 1978, um, it's, everybody is beautiful as the title, uh, published by live in cottage. It's out of print now. Um, but most of our teachers have been able to find copies of the book, um, uh, through Amazon, through, um, old booksellers. Um, and this is just, it's in pristine condition. Yeah. And these are all the pieces that Ron, um, wanted to cover. So yeah, so these are the pieces. So he, when he, before a workshop, he would say, oh, I want to cover this piece. It was the Diane Severino for instance, um, leg stretch and seated forth. And so we would, I would receive a call and say, curious, do you remember this piece? And I would quickly run to the book and, and so we would discuss it. This is a wonderful pace. Um, and Sandy Duncan, oh my goodness.

Um, called the high outside hip slimmer and that sandy didn't, that Sandy Duncan. So pretty much everyone in the book is, is a well known. It's filled with celebrities and it's a book that we'd like to, to actually redo and republished before our next conference. Oh yeah. Send Duncan before triscuits. Yeah. Before interest because, wow. These are two photo albums. Um, Ron had all of the, he had a huge Gucci foot photo photo album. I don't know if you remember seeing it. It was like a suitcase, but it was, it was crumbling.

It was falling apart and I really didn't want to get rid of it because it was this wonderful, you know, piece of history. And I still have the photo album. Um, but one of our teachers who is a graphic designer from Spain actually on champ, um, convinced me that we had to, to use acid-free paper and written really protect everything. So this is, I'm Ron Fletcher, dancer, director, producer and choreographer. So this is basically everything before the Los Angeles studio. Um, and I don't know if you want to go through a few of the pages and she just, she just is such a beautiful job on this. Um, so yes, it's hard for me to imagine how, how I could begin my life as a boy from Dogtown Missouri and end up in New York with Martha Graham and Joseph and Clara [inaudible] my teachers.

I think there is a higher power that leads us along our path and that little is left to random chance. And, um, and is it, is it, um, newspaper clippings? Is it photos? Yes, photos and newspaper clippings. And so, um, uh, that's a sort of a glamour shot of Ron. This is his background. These are early newspaper clippings. This is more from his dancer days. Um, this is a speech. Um, this was by Adley Stevenson and Tallulah Bankhead gave him this speech and I just, I dunno, it's just a piece of history, right? Um, this is when Ron became a choreographer. This is his top banana days. That was a big show on Broadway. More of top Banana Vanessa. You see, it's a combination of, of photographs and clippings and it goes through all just sort of how did he have him stored just in the suitcase. He had them stored in the suitcase in boxes.

And so what we did is we pulled everything together and, and um, there was a lot of editing that took place and put what we felt were the most important pieces in here. So this goes all the way through to the Icecapades days. Um, yeah, yes. Wow. Of course you could spend an hour on each one of these things on each page. Wow. Um, and then this photo album is, um, from Ron's La days and when he opened the studio, um, I liked the way she, I mean she just chose the most beautiful albums. So this is one of the most famous run quotes. Um, movements should be approached like life with enthusiasm, joy and gratitude for movement.

It's life and life has movement and we get out of it while we put into it. And, um, have you seen these before, David? I have s I, we've gone through them somewhat, but I haven't been able to go with them in as much detail as I'd liked here. They're just so fascinating. Yeah. Um, so that's a wonderful, I love this picture of Ron is just this perfect contraction.

And you can just see the oppositional energy from the heels all the way through the crown. Some nurses biography. That's his La Studio. Um, so that's the back entrance and that's where most of the stars came up. They really went in the backend. They went into the back end. Yeah. In the back left to go in the back entrance somewhere. This is the invitation to the opening of his studio.

Um, and then just the press was incredible during those days. Every front thing from the La Times to Cosmopolitan magazine, Vogue magazine, it just goes on and on and on. There's tie in. Severino um, [inaudible] sure. There's share once I think of Los Angeles magazine, um, [inaudible] so it just, most of these are clippings and yeah, there's, um, let's see if we can get to a few more photographs. I'm just looking for years. Yeah. So that's 75, 1975. Yeah. So there was a lot of press, um, mid seventies through the early eighties. So it didn't start in 1995.

It did not start in 1980 with the boom. No, it did not. In fact, I think Ron was part of the reason for the boom, you know, he was, he was one of the reasons that, that the movement is still alive today. Hm. Nice. Yeah, so there's an article invoke, he was involved quite a bit. He was also on the reaches Philbin show. Um, he was on the Phil Donahue show us the first televised full hour, a televised show on the [inaudible] method. Um, so full hour, Ron was the featured, I believe it was the full hour. We have an hour of footage. What about some of the pictures? So this is, Rhonda says a little boy that says, um, I love that picture. He has heard of, uh, I don't know. He looks like he knows something. We don't then this is Ron dancing. So he did dance as a, as a young, as a young boy.

Oh look, if you think he was, um, he called himself a huffer. So he, he, even though he did have dance training, he, it wasn't, um, uh, to the level of, of his expectations. And so he, he did dance, got high standards out here. He had high standards, even as a child. Um, these turned photographs by a gentleman by the name of Dan Boris, wonderful photographer from Texas, and they really, um, capture, um, the intent with which Ron moved. Um, just that well, it looks to me that contemplated, he felt that the face was part of the movement and an extension of the body. And so the focus the eyes. Yeah.

And then this is a photograph from our last, um, his, his last teaching gig. It was our last conference. So that's what year is this? May of 2011. And how old was he here? He was 19. He was native and he taught, there was just before he turned 90, he celebrated his 90th first day. He taught, he taught 160 students. Yeah. And then he passed away that November, that December, December 6th. Mm.

This I love. This is one of the, um, uh, images that he used to publish to publicize his book. And it's just, it's such a friendly image. I just, I love that ABR on, this is the cover of his book. Everybody's beautiful. Um, that was a photograph from Clara and I, I think that's so funny. This was one of bronze photographs of Claren show and uh, I gave it to him. She gave it to him. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's how we like to think of that sometimes isn't it? And she actually gifted him through is a famous shot. Um, and I wish I had that with me, um, of the original Palladia studio. And, um, it's with Mary and show and Clara in the studio. And uh, Clara gifted that to him when Ron opened his studio in Los Angeles. Yeah. Yeah.

One of the iconic photos. It is one of the iconic photos. Yes. And then it says, I'm Candice Bergen, who was a dear friend of Ron's, the list of, of Hollywood stars who went to his studio, um, is quite inc thing. What is saying what time? It says, there comes a time when all we have to pass on is the people. And that comes from, Ron says it all comes from the P P app. I remember my first experience hearing Ron say that I was like, [inaudible]. Okay. [inaudible] that works. Beautiful shot of her, your Ron, I don't know where she called herself.

Valmer or he called her Valmer and I don't know where that comes from. This is Ron with Katherine Ross, who was also a long time client and who's just a beautiful photograph of her. Hmm. Wow. What does it say? What year did that is? Um, oh, it doesn't say this should be late seventies. Beautiful. Beautiful. Wow. And this is that, this is just a little bit of what you've been gifted now. I mean, it's a little bit of, did some to Ron. You've now, okay. Curator of, I'm still still going through boxes. And it was interesting when, when Ron passed away, um, after I received these boxes and it took me a while to open them and um, and one of the things, and one of the boxes was an empty hog and does container and, uh, and I thought it was a mistake. And so I called his housekeepers and I said, you know, there's this empty hog. And I was, it was his last meal.

So his last meal was, was, uh, was a pint of rum raisin ice cream. No, what he was doing. Wow. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you. You're welcome. I sharing this. What a treat I want to get.