Toni Basil "Mickey"
Ugh. A HFH for me.
Ms. Basil's talents lie in another direction... Some years back I noticed that she had appeared in
three films that are closely associated with Jack Nicholson: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and Head.
In the last one she dances with Davy Jones during
Daddy's Song, which she also
choreographed. And that's her true calling... she started on Shindig! and The T.A.M.I. Show, and
has done the choreography for movies, music videos, and performers. But it wasn't until recently
that I looked at some Youtube videos for The Lockers, her "street dance" group from the '70s.
(Nowadays they would be a "dance crew.") It was instantly clear that their routines, now almost
forty years old, have been the inspiration for Michael Jackson, Rosie Perez and The Fly Girls, and
decades of rap videos.
