Back in this post, I led you to a great dance number from the 1985 TV special, Night of 100 Stars. Craig Shemin has some vital backstory to go with it…
I wanted to offer some info about the clip you posted a few days ago — the big dance number from Night of 100 Stars. Unfortunately, the You Tube excerpt doesn't have the intro to the number which sets it up — the thing is really more than a tribute to shoes. The number is a tribute to Conrad Cantzen, an actor who died in 1945. It was thought that Conrad was down on his luck, but when he died he bequeathed an estate of more than $200,000 (that would be more than 2.3 million bucks today) to the Actors Fund of America.
Here's where the shoes come in. Conrad specified that the money be used to establish a fund for the express purpose of purchasing shoes for actors. This fund continues to operate today, administered by the Actors Fund. Apparently, Conrad thought that actors should not look "down at the heels" while pounding the pavement auditioning.
In the first part of the production number, Dick Van Dyke tells the story of Conrad (and plays him in a few brief video cutaways) and does a song and dance with some young actors holding shoeboxes. The introductory piece ends with Dick opening a shoebox (which was filled with white tissue paper) and tilting it towards camera. The camera zooms into the shoebox and dissolves to the dance number you posted. So, in context, I think all of the dancers with the red shoes represent all of the actors who received shoes from Conrad's money over the years, and the red shoes represents the shoes Conrad has given. When Dick appears, he is again playing Conrad when he gives a pair of shoes to Alphonso Ribeiro. In case you can't make out what everyone is saying at the end, it's a reprise of the song from the introductory section:
Starting from the bottom up, that's the route to choose.
No one ever feels lowdown at the heels
Shoo away bad news and shoo away the blues
By spending Conrad's Cash on a brand new pair of shoes.Oh, and about Christopher Walken — upon a close forensic examination of the video, I believe he is indeed wearing red shoes, but they are mostly covered by a pair of white spats.
Sorry it took so long, but Conrad's tale is such a nice story of an enduring act of generosity that I wanted to share it with you and your readers.
A nice story, indeed. Thanks, Craig.