Bates danced for money as young as age 5. After he lost a leg in a cotton mill accident at 12, he learned to dance again on a wooden leg his uncle whittled for him. He performed all over the U.S. and Europe, and appeared at least 22 times on The Ed Sullivan Show.
He danced Saturday in his home town, Fountain Inn, S.C., to help raise funds for a statue of him for City Hall, and died the next day (December 6) of a heart attack. He was 91.