Legendary swingerFrankie Manning

A Tony award-winning choreographer, Manning is best known as a pioneer of the Lindy Hop, a swing dance. The dance had developed in the African American community in the 1920s, but in 1935 Manning and his partner did the first “air step”, or aerial dance move, wowing the audience at a competition. That helped to make the Lindy Hop (named for Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 “hop” across the Atlantic) popular across the U.S. and, eventually, the world. Frankie “Musclehead” Manning died April 27 from pneumonia. He was 94.