Charles Atkins, known as Cholly, was born in Pratt City, Alabama, in 1913 and danced the vaudeville circuit in the late 1930s before being drafted into the Army in 1942. After the war he teamed with tap dancer Charles Honi Coles as Atkins and Coles, debuting at the Apollo Theater and touring with bands led by Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton. From 1949 the duo spent three years in the original Broadway run of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. His first wife, Cotton Club dancer Catherine Williams, divorced him in 1944, and that same year he married Dottie Salters, the ex-wife of Honi Coles, who became his dance partner while the act carried on.
As vaudeville and big bands faded in the 1950s, Atkins saw that doo-wop and R&B groups looked stiff on stage and created vocal choreography: glides, hip pivots, finger snaps and hand gestures that kept the diaphragm steady for singing. He coached the Cadillacs, the Shirelles, the Moonglows, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and Little Anthony and the Imperials, freelanced for the Miracles in 1962, and joined Motown full time in 1964, shaping the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops and Gladys Knight and the Pips. In 1989 he shared the Tony Award for Best Choreography for Black and Blue.
- Catherine Williams later earned a master’s degree at the University of Iowa and became an award-winning social worker.
- Atkins appears on camera in the Temptations’ video for Lady Soul.
- In the 1970s he worked with the Sylvers and the O’Jays, including on Soul Train.
- A 1993 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship sent him touring colleges to teach vocal choreography.
- He taught in Las Vegas until February 2003 and died of pancreatic cancer in April 2003 at 89.
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