Take Merengue Lessons-Sexy, Fun & Great for Beginners!
May 31, 2014It’s Never Too Late to Learn How to Dance!
June 19, 2014
Kathryn Murray led an extraordinary life. The wife of dance instructor and entrepreneur Arthur Murray, Kathryn helped inspire millions of people to try dancing. In her professional career, she was a dancer, dance instructor, television hostess, author, and vice president of a multimillion dollar business. In her personal life, she was a wife of 66 years, mother to twin daughters, grandmother, and great-grandmother.
When Kathryn Kohnfelder was a teenager, she was a member of the studio audience at an Arthur Murray radio program. Mr. Murray often asked people from the audience to help demonstrate the dance steps he was teaching. On that particular day, he called Kathryn onto the stage. Later he asked her for a date.
“I had visions of going to some swanky New York nightspot,” she recalled in an interview. “Instead, he took me to a theater—on passes—and then we went home, where he made sandwiches in my mother’s kitchen.”
They were married four months later, in 1925. Together, the couple opened a dance school. Kathryn wrote the training manuals for the Arthur Murray franchises, teaching instructors how to engage students and foster their love for dancing.
In 1950, Kathryn took on the role of hostess for the couple’s television show, The Arthur Murray Party. The show received high ratings throughout the decade. Besides hosting the show with her husband, Kathryn danced and sang on the show, and was involved in the show’s dance contests and comedy skits. At the end of each episode, Mrs. Murray told her audience “Put a little fun into your life. Try dancing.” At that point, her husband waltzed her away.
In 1964, Arthur and Kathryn retired as president and vice president of their dance studio business. At the time, the 300 franchise studios were grossing $25 million a year.
They retired to Hawaii in 1965. Kathryn authored two books: My Husband, Arthur Murray with Betty Hoffman in 1960 and Family Laugh Lines in 1966. The couple made a television appearance in the 1980s as judges on Merv Griffin’s Dance Fever. Kathryn became a widow in 1991, when Arthur died at the age of 95. Kathryn died in Hawaii in 1999. She was 92.
Why not put a little fun into your life? Find out about the Arthur Murray way of dancing. Make an appointment today at the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Charlotte and Lake Norman, NC.
