Remembering the Original Dancing With the Stars

Daughter of Dance Hall King Arthur Murray Waxes Nostalgic in new book

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Apr 27, 2010, 09:30 ET

CINCINNATI, April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Decades before there was a Dancing with the Stars, there was a network television show that ran for 11 years that was all about dancing with the famous.

Arthur Murray and his wife Kathryn, starred from 1950 to 1961 on The Arthur Murray Party, which featured guests like movie idol Errol Flynn, Merv Griffin, Eva Gabor, singer Connie Francis, comic genius Groucho Marx and first lady of the theater Helen Hayes. Celebrity winners received prizes like a trip to Europe, a sports car, or a giant bottle of Arpege. And while the glitz and glamour of a weekly television show was being featured on camera, Arthur and Kathryn's daughter Jane sat in the wings, a witness to the spectacle, a passenger on the celebrity train that ran for that decade.

Now, daughter Jane Murray Heimlich is reminiscing about those days in her memoir Out of Step (Orange Frazer Press, $24.95). The book is now available wherever books are sold.

"There are some amazing moments on those shows, and I don't think I'm being overly proud by saying that it was the type of show that paved the way for shows like Dancing with the Stars," said Heimlich.

Jane, now an author and respected expert in homeopathy (having written two of the seminal books on the topic), had a second brush with fame when her husband, a little-known chest surgeon named Henry Heimlich, invented a first aid technique that would later be named for him—The Heimlich Maneuver. Having lived in the spotlight of celebrity both as a child and as an adult, Jane has a unique perspective on the celebrity-driven world of today.

"It wasn't always rosy," she added. "My father was a perfectionist, and his demanding nature earned him the nickname "The Monster of Television." Still, I grew up surrounded by amazing talent. I even received a satirical note from Groucho Marx when it became known I was marrying Henry. He lamented that he always felt that he and I would be together one day, and then warned me to make sure that all of Henry's nurses were ugly. How many people can say they've received wedding congratulations of that caliber?"

For more information about the book contact Sarah Hawley of Orange Frazer Press. 937.382.3196 or visit www.orangefrazer.com.

SOURCE Orange Frazer Press