One of Anaheim High’s best kept secrets is Class of 1930 graduate Charles Walters who became a successful Broadway and Hollywood dancer, choreographer and director.
In a soon-to-be-published book about his life, Walters is credited with being “responsible for staging some of the best remembered (now iconic) film musical sequences of the 1940s, showcasing Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Mickey Rooney, among others.
Walters also directed — and often simultaneously choreographed — some of the most popular movie musicals made during Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio’s “golden age” and beyond. From his earliest directorial triumphs, “Good News,” “Easter Parade,” and The Barkleys of Broadway” to his smash hits “Lili,” “High Society,” and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
After graduating from Anaheim High, he studied law to please his family, but after a year left USC to study at Pasadena Playhouse, at that time one of the finest schools of dramatics on the West Coast.
His success on Broadway probably didn’t surprise his Anaheim High drama coach and fellow students. According to “One to Twenty-Eight: A History of Anaheim Union High School District” by Louise Booth, the first musical comedy performed at Anaheim High starred student Charles Walters in fall of 1928. “Heigh-Ho” was co-written and directed by Walters and his teacher Faye Schulz and “featured dancing and singing in the current Hollywood style.”
Walters performing while at Anaheim High
So popular were the school productions during this time, tickets were sold at a downtown store, where patrons stood in line to get choice seats.
Cook Auditorium in 1920s-30s
From AUHS Cook Auditorium to the stages of Broadway, Walters quickly went up the ranks and got his big break when selected to dance with Mary Boland in the New York production of “Jumbo.”
In “What A Swell Party: The Musical World of Charles Walters” author Brent Phillips writes that Walters was “hailed by critics throughout the 1930s as ‘the ranking dancing juvenile of the legitimate theater’ as he originated featured roles in some of Broadway’s most glowing offerings, including Cole Porter’s “Jubilee” and “Du Barry was a Lady” and Rodgers and Hart’s “I Married An Angel.”
When Hollywood called, Walters returned home in the role of dance director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, leading into a career as director of classic MGM movies, including “Lili,” a 1953 film that earned Walter an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
After creating a legacy of films that defined the “golden age” of Hollywood Walters retired from film making in 1966 and died in Malibu from lung cancer at age of 71. More on his life can be read at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Walters
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- Charles Walters in 1957 yearbook themed “Local Boy Does Good”
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- Walters with Esther Williams
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- Hollywood director Charles Walters
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- Dancer, choreographer and director Charles Walters
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- Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Charles Walters
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- Grace Kelly and Charles Walters
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- Charles Walters star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
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- Charles Walters dancing on the stage of AUHS Cook Auditorium
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- Charles Walters – AHS Class of 1930
