Marge Champion

In her five-hour interview, Marge Champion (1919-2020) talks about her early years growing up as the daughter of a choreographer in Hollywood. She describes working for Walt Disney as the motion model for "Snow White." She recounts moving to New York in 1939 to make it on Broadway and her marriage to long-time collaborator Gower Champion. She recalls developing her act with Gower Champion and appearing on an early television test. Champion discusses several television appearances she and Gower made in the 1950s, including Admiral Broadway Revue, Your Show of Shows, and The Ed Sullivan Show. She outlines touring the Soviet Union with Sullivan, and later starring in her own series The Marge and Gower Champion Show. She speaks of several late 1950s and early '60s television appearances including The Bell Telephone Hour, The Dinah Shore Show, and The Perry Como Show. She details retiring from performing and her subsequent split with Gower Champion, as well as her career as a choreographer. She talks about choreographing Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, for which she received an Emmy Award. Sunny Parich conducted the interview on October 30, 1998 in Stockbridge, MA.