Lights! Camera! Action!

Broadway musicals were at a high point in the 1920s when “talkies” revolutionized Hollywood, and the movie industry quickly retooled itself into a vast soundstage for stars who sang and danced. From Valentino’s silent but smoldering tango to the movie musical’s heyday at midcentury, the screen illuminated the possibilities of the American Dream. During the Great Depression, Busby Berkeley filled the screen with spectacular, over-the-top production numbers, while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers swept across stage sets in white-tie-and-sequined elegance. Through the decades, movies projected a larger-than-life version of the American spirit, dancing and singing in the rain or decked out for Saturday night at the disco. More recently, dance has continued to play a featured role in such contemporary films as The Black Swan and the Oscar-winning The Artist.



National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

October 4, 2013
through July 13, 2014


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Fred Astaire 1899–1987
Ginger Rogers 1911–1995
Unidentified artist
Gelatin silver print, 1936
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James Cagney 1899–1986
Continental Lithograph Corporation (founded 1926)
Color photolithographic halftone poster, 1942
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Liza Minnelli born 1946
Alan Pappe (born 1934)
Color photograph, 1972
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Gregory Hines 1946–2003
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989)
Gelatin silver print, 1985
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The Artist
Unidentified artist
Poster, 2011
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