Arthur Murray was born Murray Teichman on April 4th, 1895. He grew up on New York's lower East Side, poor, shy and scared stiff of dancing. In his early teens Mr. Murray attended Morris High School by day, studied draftsmanship first at Cooper Union, and night school at Columbia University, while working as an errand boy.
Until 1900 a limited number of Americans danced; when they did, it was mainly Waltzes and Polkas. Jazz dancing became popular in the early 1900s, and around 1910 Ragtime came into vogue with dances such as the Crab Step, Kangaroo Dip, Chicken Scratch, and Turkey Trot.
Mr. Murray started teaching dancing in 1913 at a huge exhibition hall in New York City, the Grand Central Palace. He taught dances in the evenings for two years while working at an architectural office during the day. When he began making three dollars a night teaching (more than he was making at his full-time job) he left the office and went to work as a full-time instructor for G. Hepburn Wilson. Mr. Wilson was the first dance master to advertise and offer individual rather than class lessons.
Mr. Murray felt he needed more instruction himself, so he invested in lessons at the Castle House, owned and run by Irene and Vernon Castle. Their style of dancing greatly appealed to Mr. Murray, who took training from them. It was during this time at Castle House that Mr. Murray learned the famous Castle Walk and the Tango, along with many other dances of the time. After completing his course of instruction, Mr. Murray applied for a position at the Castle House and was sent to the Devereaux Mansion in Marblehead, Massachusetts, to teach summer residents from Back Bay, Boston.
In the summer of 1914 the Baroness de Kuttleston, whom he had met at Castle House, asked if he would be her partner in teaching dancing during the Fall and Winter at a resort in Asheville, North Carolina, called the Battery Park Hotel. It was the Baroness's idea to change his name from Murray Teichman to "Arthur Murray." She thought "Teichman" sounded too German, since war with Germany seemed imminent.
In 1919 Arthur decided to enroll in a business administration course at Georgia Tech. He planned to meet expenses by dancing his way through college, but he did better than that. He began teaching dancing in his spare time at the Grill Room of the Georgian Terrace, at that time the leading resort hotel in Atlanta. He soon had more than one thousand children enrolled in different age groups at different social levels; among them Bobby Jones of golf fame and the Chandler twins of the Coca-Cola Fortune.
During this time, B.C. Forbes, editor of Forbes magazine, featured an article about Mr. Murray entitled "This College Student Earns $15,000 a Year." Although this was not Mr. Murray's first fling at national publicity, it was a great help. On March 27, 1920, he had arranged, using students from Georgia Tech, to have music transmitted to a group of his students dancing a few miles away; this was the world's first radio broadcast of live dance music for dancing, and Arthur Murray received quite a bit of national coverage.
About this time, The Atlanta Journal had started a promotion that included a "kinetoscope," a toy moving-picture device. This gave Arthur the idea of teaching dancing by mail. He ordered a thousand kinetoscopes, posed for the pictures, and placed ads with coupons titled "Learn to Dance at Home." The replies were fantastic; so he ordered, posed for, and ran more ads. The little tin projectors started coming back for refunds; they had broken in transit. In the meantime, the kinetoscope manufacturer had gone bankrupt, and Arthur couldn't get his money back. He had huge advertising, photography, and printing bills, and all the money he had earned melted away in less than two months.
However, the Murray dance classes soon attracted adults as well, and celebrities visiting Atlanta brushed up on their dancing while staying at the Georgian Terrace. Opera star Enrico Caruso was one of his students and knew Arthur was having difficulty succeeding with his dancing-by-mail classes. Caruso jokingly suggested that Arthur should begin sending lessons for one foot only, and then when paid, send lessons for the other foot! The thought of lessons "by the foot" gave Mr. Murray the idea for the famous "footprints" that became an Arthur Murray trademark. Depicting dance steps was the key and enabled Arthur to obtain a loan and begin a new mail-order campaign.
Arthur designed a dance instruction book using the dance footprint diagrams, had it printed, and cautiously placed a few newspaper ads; again, returns were encouraging. Reasoning that people wouldn't expect the latest dance steps to come from Georgia, Arthur rented desk space in a small office on Fifth Avenue in New York and employed a secretary there to handle the responses. The business made a slow start and ran at a loss even though each dance course sold for ten dollars.
After studying the mail-order business in earnest, Arthur decided to concentrate his efforts f in that market and left Atlanta in 1923 to live in New York City. He placed an ad entitled "How I Became Popular Overnight," that drew upon personal memories, in a national magazine. The ad brought in 37,000 replies. Then Arthur ran the same copy in the New York Times Book Section with equally successful results. When Arthur married Kathryn in the Spring of 1925, his mail-order business, then six years old, was netting him $35,000 a year, and more than five million Americans had learned to dance by mail. Until 1925 most magazines accepted mail-order ads on a per-coupon basis; that is, the advertiser paid according to the number of replies that came in. When this procedure was dropped, ads increased in cost and the possibility of future success in the mail-order business ended. So Arthur returned to his main interest: personal dance instruction.
During the twenties the Arthur Murray Studio at 11 East 43rd Street in New York did a thriving business. The years following the stock market crash of 1929 were tough, and the studio shrank from six floors to two--but successfully survived the depression. During the thirties, Mr. Murray advertised extensively and imaginatively about the benefits of dancing: confidence, exercise, popularity, business reasons, etc. An organizational magazine was started called the Murray-Go-Round; it continues to be popular to this day. Prior to World War II, Arthur Murray teachers were a regular part of every first-class steamship cruise, and during the thirties the studios introduced such dances to the public as the Lambeth Walk and the Big Apple.
The Big Apple was promoted heavily by the Murray organization; in fact, it was the Big Apple that launched Mr. Murray's one studio into the largest chain of dance studios in the world today. During the summer of 1937, there was a small news item in the New York Times about a dance from North Carolina. The paper only mentioned that a group of dancers had been seen in a little night spot called "The Big Apple." Mr. Murray sent one of his teachers to investigate; he reported there wasn't much to the dance: the couples merely formed a circle and stomped around to jazz tempos, following calls shouted by a leader. So Mr. Murray and staff created patterns for The Big Apple dance that Arthur could publicize. Steps from the current Shag, Suzie "Q," and Truckin' dances were given "call" names such as "Peel the Apple," "Cut the Apple," and so on.
John Hennesey, general manager of the Statler Hotels, asked Mr. Murray to send instructors to his chain of hotels. Mr. Murray did so on the basis that the teachers send a percentage of what they made to him and keep the rest. This was the beginning of the Arthur Murray franchise system. In 1938 the first official opening of a franchised school was in Minneapolis. (Actually, Detroit had been the first franchise issued, but the studio did not open until after Minneapolis.) By 1946, when Arthur incorporated, there were 72 franchised studios grossing nearly 20 million dollars a year! Lesson rates were four to ten dollars per hour depending upon the length of the course.
In July 1950 Arthur Murray bought five fifteen-minute television spots on CBS and persuaded Kathryn to do the honors of teaching. Before the third show Mr. Murray bought a half-hour summer series on ABC. The show was called the "Arthur Murray Dance Party." By May 1952 the Murrays had televised almost 100 programs. Their TV ratings climbed, and for the summer of 1952 they signed with their first sponsor on CBS, General Foods. It was a shock to the trade to have the Murrays -- former sponsors -- hired as talent! Millions of viewers all over the United States fell in love with the show and encouraged its continuation by flocking to the Arthur Murray Studios throughout the country. An average of 2,000 new students were beginning courses each week! In April 1957 Mr. Murray decided to present famous stars in the dance contests, which continued for the duration of the program through 1961. Many talented celebrities appeared on the weekly "Dance Party" series.
The backbone of the Arthur Murray Studios' clientele has always been the ordinary citizen, but a considerable number of celebrities of the arts, business and politicians have also taken lessons: Johnny Carson, Mr. & Mrs. Merv Griffin, Bob Hope, Katherine Hepburn, Ed Sullivan, Don Ameche, Helen Hays, and Joey Bishop. Jane Fonda and Chris Kristofferson took lessons for movies; James Taylor's entire wedding party learned the Arthur Murray way. Other celebrities include: David Niven, Robert Duval, and Shelly Berman. And sports figures such as Steve Cauthen, Ike Curtis, Max Montoya, Paul and Ray Renfro took lessons. However, with the introduction of the Twist in 1961, romantic, social dancing became less popular and business declined for a few years.
Mr. and Mrs. Murray retired from active participation in the organization in 1964, and Mr. George B. Theiss, along with Mr. Philip Masters, Mr. Samuel Costello, and other investors bought the company and brought a fresh new spirit and leadership to the dance organization.
In 1967 George B. Theiss originated the phrase "Touch Dancing" that has become synonymous with social partnership dancing. Beginning about 1968 (and continuing to the present day), Touch Dancing has become popular again, especially in the Latin Dances such as the Mambo, Merengue, and Tango. Specials and layouts appeared in Vogue, Time, the Smithsonian and other internationally known publications. The organization experienced renewed interest in learning partnership dances by young adults who were seeking something new and different. What they found were the same joys their parents had experienced -- the exhilaration that comes from having a fun evening while moving with a partner in time and in tune to the music.
The advent of the Hustle brought a wild, carefree-but-still-sophisticated-feeling to society, and was featured in major movies, TV shows, etc. Dance contests and dressing up again was the order of the day. The movie "Saturday Night Fever" was released in December 1977, and it caused an immediate increase in the number of people flocking the studios. In 1978 the Hustle was very popular; nearly everyone was asking for it. In mid-1979, demand for the Hustle gave birth to an increased interest in other social dances such as the Fox Trot, Rumba, and Cha Cha. Experts predict that this renewed interest in Touch Dancing will continue into and throughout the future. Indeed, studios in the Arthur Murray organization have experienced increased interest, and many new students, including younger people have enrolled for lessons from Tango (Argentine Tango) to Cha Cha, Salsa, Hustle, and different versions of the Disco style.
The Arthur Murray organization has achieved great things, particularly in the area of health benefits. Dance instruction has been used extensively for physical therapy in hospitals such as Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. It also brings big psychological benefits in the form of confidence, poise and self-understanding.
Dancing is recognized by the medical profession as having benefits of both curative and corrective value, so much so that leading physicians and psychiatrists refer their patients to dance schools as a form of emotional and physical improvement.
One of the obvious benefits of dancing is exercise for weight control and appearance. This is not to say that the larger person cannot be a good dancer, for many are. However, studies do show that vigorous dancing will burn six hundred calories per hour. Consequently, a regular schedule of dancing is a great way to stay in shape and can do wonders for the legs and waistline. For any age, it is an excellent way of keeping the muscles toned, and it can iron out the stiffness of carriage, one of the foremost signs of aging.
For many, dancing leads to meeting new people and romance, as couples can get to know each other in a socially proper, nonthreatening way that feels very intimate. In today's society, getting to "know your partner" has many aspects of meaning and impact. Dancing can lead to romantic situations or can simply be an enjoyable, friendly interaction between two people ... the choice being a mutual one by both partners.
At Arthur Murray, dancing is a sociable pursuit. Dance partners cannot help but take an interest in the person in their arms. Naturally, on the dance floor there are many introductions and new friendships begin when the music stops. Through dancing, many people experience personal improvements in other areas too -- hair styles and general appearance. Consequently, a positive change can be the result of exposure to a dance environment such as that found at the Arthur Murray Franchised Dance studios.
At the present time there are about 200 studios and classes franchised by Arthur Murray International, Inc., in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Puerto Rico, as well as in most of the fifty states in the United States. The franchised studios are owned and operated by former staff members who have worked their way up in the business. They started as teachers but became alert to the possibilities of ownership after reaching executive level. This is undoubtedly the safest, surest way to gain a franchise. To run a studio profitably, the owner should understand every phase of operation - and have actual teaching experience. An ambitious person, acceptable as a staff member, can advance to a top executive job and become eligible as a franchisee within just a few years.
There is a close bond among franchisees and franchisors who conducts frequent district, regional, and area get-togethers with staff members and also hold student competitions. The competitions are held for the purpose of improving each person's knowledge of dancing and teaching, and to learn more about human relations as they apply to business as well as daily living. International conventions are also held so that franchisees from various parts of the world may exchange ideas about the dance industry and improve their skills in operating their own businesses.
The main difference between an Arthur Murray International convention and meetings held by other franchised businesses can be found in the social evenings. What do the participants do? They dance, of course!
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last updated Monday, October 31, 2005
