From the Give Up Clothes for Good campaign to raise money for cancer research.
For me, Dancing With The Stars (always a show that sought to stretch the very definition of the term- STAR) finally really jumped the shark this season. It was the Bristol factor, for sure. I was not happy to share a night of TV viewing with call-in fans who have no fear of celebrating mediocrity. Her mother has followers that support her because: “She is just a regular person. Sarah Palin is just like us.” Excuse me, but I want my leaders to be the brightest of the bright. I don’t want them to be anything like me. I want them to have studied Constitutional Law at Stanford, Yale, Princeton, or Harvard. I want them to have practical experience on many levels… & I want my finalists of DWTS "Stars" to be terrific dancers.
Bruno Tonioli makes the show really just sing out. His critiques make me laugh, but put out with the Italian accent, they reach a whole new sublime level of wit. He used that wit to beat his childhood bullies.
Toniolo was born in Ferrara, northern Italy, the only child of a poor bus & seamstress who also made car upholstery. The family lived with his paternal grandparents until Bruno was 12.
Toniolo: “Other babies learn to stand & then walk. I just danced. At the age of 3 I would leap on the table & dance if I heard music. It was something I had to do, as if my legs were moving for themselves. We didn’t have a television until I was seven but my father loved Fred Astaire & Gene Kelly. I used to watch Hollywood musicals at the cinema & in the evenings I would go to the ballroom & watch my parents dance.”
He also knew from an early age that he was gay, not so easy in macho Italy during the 1960s. Toniolo:“It was frightening. I really was the only gay in the village. Everyone was football mad but I just wanted to watch musicals & look at art. I was labelled ‘the queenie guy’ & ‘the queer’, which was the worst thing anyone could say in Italy in those days.”
Much of the bullying came from the fact that he studied dance. Toniolo: “The really good-looking girls liked to hang around with me because I always danced really well but this made some of the lads jealous. One night they chased me out of a club with a broken bottle & pinned me up against a wall. I managed to chat my way out of it with a bit of wit “imagination but I was very lucky. I realized then I had to reinvent myself. So I grew my hair, started smoking, always wore the latest gear & had the best looking girls as my friends & I became very popular just by putting on an act. Instead of being an object of derision I became an object of admiration so the bullies couldn’t attack me any more.”
He never discussed his sexuality with his parents: “It was not in the realm of things my parents could compute.” Years later they came to stay with him in London when he was living with partner Paul. They were together for 20 years but he now resides alone in North London.
Toniolo believes they knew: “I never had a girlfriend & there were always men hanging around the house. I don’t think they were ashamed but I do think they were worried about what people would think.”
In 1972, when the film version Cabaret was playing, Toniolo saw it many times & it helped him decided to be a performer. His parents refused to send him drama school, & left for Rome to study ballet, & at 18, he moved to Paris to dance with La Grande Eugene Company. 2 years later he moved to London.
In 1983 he appeared in the pop video for Elton John’s hit I’m Still Standing, dancing in a leotard & hot pants. He went on to become a choreographer & did the dancing for the film Absolute Beginners, a favorite of mine, & for music videos, stage shows, & tours for artists such as Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Boy George, Duran Dura, & Bananarama. Film credits: Ella Enchanted, The Gathering Storm, Little Voice, Dancin' thru the Dark, Enigma, The Parole Officer & What a Girl Wants.
You look like a crazy bear lost in a swamp.”
“The cha-cha-cha needs a slut.”
About Apolo Ono & Julianne Huff: “They made love on the dance floor!”
"Do you have extra batteries in your pants?”
“You look like you’re riding a bike.”
“Your rumba was so hot, I need an ice bucket.”
“I want you to be a dirty girl.”
“I want you to push more on the sex and become more dirty.”
To Drew and Cheryl: “You 2 can ride each other like no other!”
“Kristi Yamalicious tonight!”
To Niecy Nash after shaking her stuff during her jive: "There was so much going on on the upper deck, it was hard to look anywhere else."
To Jake Pavelka after he put his pants back on about 2 seconds into his "Risky Business" cha cha: "Jake, you cheeky bugger! Why did you put your pants on?"
To Kate Gosselin on her uber-low energy during her foxtrot: "Dahling, I think Tony could have more life with a frock on a coat hanger."
Another Gosselin zinger (because one is simply not enough): "What you need is a postmortem, not a critique."
To Nicole Scherzinger after a tango (delivered with unbridled enthusiasm while standing up): "2 players at the top of their game! Riding the fine line between love & hate, bursting with sexual tension!"
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