What a feeling for Crazy Legs!
QUESTION What became of the male dancer who was the body double for Jennifer Beals in Flashdance?
Flashdance was a hugely popular 1983 film starring Jennifer Beals as alex Owens, welder by day, dancer by night.
The famous penultimate scene features alex auditioning for the Pittsburgh conservatory of dance and Repertory to the strains of Irene cara’s What a Feeling.
alex’s complex routine featuring ballet, jazz dance and breakdancing includes a fiendishly difficult move called the whip backspin, which entails spinning continuously on the back with legs tucked into the chest.
The scene required four dancers melded into a single character: Beals, gymnast sharon shapiro, male break dancer Richard ‘crazy legs’ colon and principal dance double Marine Jahan.
crazy legs, who was just 16, wore a wig, shaved his moustache and squeezed into a leotard. however, some cinemagoers spotted his masculine bulges.
he was a member of new York’s top break dancing group, the Rock steady crew, which had emerged from the Bronx in 1977 at the dawn of hip hop.
Today, he is president of the crew, organising the annual Rock steady anniversary, recruiting new members, organising displays and ensuring they have a career outside dancing.
Rachel Anderson, Warwick.
QUESTION Racquet is frequently spelled racket. What other English words have become Americanised?
TheRe is a delightful irony in the fact that racket is the much older word. Racquet is a 19th-century borrowing from French. Both are probably derived from the Middle French rachette or requette, meaning palm of the hand.
This sporting equipment was originally used to play rackets, a game similar to squash but with a larger court and harder ball. It is still played in a few public schools. The game is mentioned in Geoffrey chaucer’s Troilus & criseyde: ‘Kanstow playen raket . . .’
lawn tennis is a surprisingly modern game. It was invented by Major Walter Wingfield, of her Majesty’s Body Guard, in 1874 under the name Sphairistike, an ancient Greek term meaning skill in playing at ball.
several supposed americanisms are, in fact, the older form.
Fall was used to designate the season from the 16th century. It was probably developed from the Middle english expression ‘fall of the leaf’. It was supplanted by autumn, a French term, in Britain by the end of the 17th century.
americans use diaper for nappy, a word that has been in use since the 15th century. It is derived from the Old French diaspre, from latin and Greek terms relating to white fabric. nappy, a diminutive of napkin, appeared in Britain in 1920. Gotten dates back to the Old english word gietan.
Trash is a 14th-century word for waste, refuse or dross. It is derived from the Old norse word tros, meaning fallen leaves and twigs. Faucet has been in use since the 15th century, derived from the Middle French word fausset, meaning bung.
Henry Mayhew, Bournemouth, Dorset.
IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but
we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.