Killer Joe Piro

Frank "Killer Joe" Piro (2 March 1921 - 5 February 1989) was a dance instructor to high society and popularized steps of the discotheque era of the 1960s and 1970s.

Piro was born in East Harlem, the son of an Italian tailor. He described himself as 'skinny and ugly', and, to meet girls, began dancing. Piro got hooked on dance by frequenting the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in his late teens.

He won his moniker at the dance contests that were a big feature of the New York City scene in the 1940s. The "Killer Joe" nickname comes from a supposed ability to wear out one partner after the other on the dance floor. It has been suggested that the John Travolta role in "Saturday Night Fever" owes more than a little to Piro.

While serving with the US Navy in World War II, he won a National Jitterbug contest held at the 1942 Harvest Moon Ball, and earned a transfer to Broadway's equivalent of the Hollywood Canteen, where he strutted his stuff with Kathryn Cornell and other stage stars.

After the war, Piro started winning dance contests at the Palladium Ballroom in Manhattan with such frequency that he said they offered him $15 a week to be a teacher and stay out of the contests. There he recruited as his co-instructor Carmen Marie Padilla, who was also a singer and later became the poet Carmen M. Pursifull; he called their team ' ' Killer Joe and Carmen. ' ' Piro moved on to serve as master of ceremonies at the Palladium, into which thousands of dancers would pack each night. He would offer mass lessons in whatever step was the rage, and take on all comers willing to challenge his status as the undisputed master.

The Palladium proclaimed itself the "temple of mambo" and Hollywood inevitably capitalized on the craze. Piro can be seen doing the mambo to the music of Tito Rodriguez on the 1950 Universal short subject, "Mambo Madness."

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