A GODDESS OF GO-GO TWISTS AGAIN
LOS ANGELES — When Toni Basil’s agent told her that an anonymous filmmaker from an unidentified production company wanted to chat, she was intrigued. It was something about the 1960s, she was told, so she mopped her dance-studio floor in case she’d have to teach the boogaloo or the watusi. She signed a nondisclosure agreement. Then she met with Quentin Tarantino.
Basil, a dancer and choreographer, and Tarantino clicked. They swapped television dance-show trivia: “He knew the names of the go-go dancers on ‘Hullabaloo,’” she said in an interview. “He knew I was assistant choreographer on ‘Shindig.’ ”
Tarantino invited Basil to be the choreographer on his latest movie, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” set over a handful of days in 1969, about a fading television actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), his stuntman sidekick (Brad Pitt) and real-life characters including the actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Though the movie is not a
musical and only intermittently bubbles into dance, Tarantino lavishes as much care on recalling an era of American social dance as he does on re-creating the look of the marquee of the Pussycat Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
“Of course Toni Basil is the right person to choreograph the ’60s; this was her era,” said Nigel Lythgoe, the creator and executive producer of “So You Think You Can Dance,” speaking by phone in Los Angeles. (Basil was a judge in early seasons.) “Toni was at ‘The T.A.M.I. Show,’ in the wings, next to Mick Jagger, watching James Brown, when Mick said, ‘How do I follow?’ ”
Basil was something of a dancing “it” girl in Los Angeles in the ’60s. She bopped on the beach in a red bikini in “Pajama Party” (1964) and “did the dog” in the Elvis Presley movie “Viva Las Vegas” (1964). She lived in freewheeling, bohemian Topanga Canyon, befriending visual artists and rock stars, and falling in with the New Hollywood crowd that included Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.
“I knew Sharon,” Basil said, referring to Sharon Tate. “Whew. I also dated Jay Sebring” — Tate’s celebrity hairdresser, played by
Emile Hirsch in the movie. (Both were killed by the Manson family in August 1969 at the home Tate shared with her husband, the director Roman Polanski.)
Basil also acted, appearing in “Easy Rider” (1969) and “Five Easy Pieces” (1970), two epochal films that opened around the time that Tarantino’s movie is set. In an interview on the Los Angeles television program “Eye on L.A.,” Tarantino called Basil not just “the goddess of go-go,” but also “a terrific, zeitgeisty actress.”
Basil, 75, a striking woman with kohl-lined cat’s eyes, spoke animatedly in her Spanish-style bungalow in the Fairfax neighborhood here about her “full-circle” experience on “Once Upon a Time …” Her post-’60s career — she is probably best known for her hit record “Hey Mickey” (1981) — was evident in the clutter of showbiz memorabilia decorating her home: posters of Bette Midler and David Bowie, for whom she choreographed and staged extravagant concerts (she worked with Midler for more than four decades); and a photo of her with the Lockers, her crew of street dancers that codified, and elevated, urban dance styles in the ’70s.
Basil said she still dances every day, and you can catch a glimpse of her form during the opening credits of Tarantino’s movie. Clad in her signature fedora, she and Robbie do the twist on a Pan Am flight carrying Polanski and Tate to Los Angeles.
There are two choreographed sequences in the movie, and the first is quick. It spotlights DiCaprio in a high-gloss redo of NBC’s “Hullabaloo,” a mid-60s variety show that featured a posse of jazz and go-go dancers gyrating around musical guests. (“Shindig,” on ABC, was the competition.)
For Tarantino’s “Hullabaloo,” Basil put DiCaprio at the center of a glowing white set, doing what she called a “sexy smooth mischievous” twist. Behind him, three go-go dancers, in de rigueur white boots, do the pony punctuated by finger snaps. At Tarantino’s request, the dancers gesture, as in Motown choreography: pointing a single finger, or raising it to the lips, like “hush!”
For the film’s second, more elaborate, choreographed sequence, a sprawling party at the Playboy Mansion, Tarantino and Basil oversaw a cast of 240 extras, who were given Basil’s video compilation “Popular Dance Crazes of the ’60s” to study.
Basil winnowed out the good dancers — “who could twist, who could jerk, who could pony?” Her first rule: no sneakers. “I auditioned some heavy hip-hop people — they couldn’t handle it,” she said. “The ’60s was leather soles and a wooden floor. That’s why the twist, the simplest dance, was such a sensation. Everyone could do it. They just swivel their feet and the upper body fell naturally in the opposite direction.”
Fifteen people were selected to be Playboy bunnies, circulating at the party. But after five hours of filming, Basil said, Tarantino had an idea: What if they danced?
Basil was tasked on the spot with creating a dance for four of the extras. Tarantino put them on apple boxes so they could be seen, but they were still behind a throng of dancing partygoers. “I knew it couldn’t be the pony, it couldn’t be the twist,” Basil said. “It had to be the jerk — the dance that is from the waist up.”
She worked quickly, constructing a movement chain from the go-go playbook. “These are nondancers,” she said. “They’re nervous. They’re learning unison in a bunny costume, in high heels, on boxes. Cameras are waiting. You instruct your strongest girl: ‘You call out the steps under your breath — like a ventriloquist, ‘Do the jerk, change, lasso arms, change.’ ”
Before the ’60s, Basil said, social dance “was partnering; it was the jitterbug.” But in the ’60s, partners split apart: “Freedom — what the ’60s were about.” Now, with dancers no longer holding hands, “arms started to dance,” she said, and the jerk, the swim, and the hitchhike appeared, each a dance for gesticulating arms.
She also coached the actors. Having seen Robbie in “I, Tonya,” the movie about the ice skater Tonya Harding, Basil said she was confident Robbie could dance. The pair hung out and go-go danced in Basil’s studio for three days. At a certain point, “Margot could freestyle in any situation in scene,” Basil said. “She knew the ’60s left and right. Since Quentin knew all the step names, he’d guide her.”
Basil said she was surprised by Tarantino’s detailed familiarity with her work. including her quirky duet with Davy Jones, “Daddy’s Song,” in the Monkees’ movie “Head” (1968). And his ’60s dance knowledge ran deep.
When Basil mentioned to him that the “Bonanza” star Michael Landon went on “Hullabaloo” and danced “the Freddie,” Tarantino stood up and demonstrated, rocking back and forth and slapping his arms on his body.
“Not a lot of people know that dance,” Basil said. “I certainly don’t know another director who can dance it. When Quentin did the Freddie, I thought to myself: Well, I’ll never pull the wool over guy’s eyes.”