Marge Champion
| Marge Champion | |
|---|---|
Marge and Gower Champion in 1957
|
|
| Born |
Marjorie Celeste Belcher September 2, 1919 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Occupation | Dancer, choreographer, actress |
| Years active | 1930s–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Art Babbitt (1937–40) Gower Champion (1947–73) Boris Sagal (1977–81) |
| Children | Blake Gregg |
| Relatives | Lina Basquette (half-sister) |
Marjorie Celeste "Marge" Champion (née Belcher; born September 2, 1919), is an American dancer, choreographer, and actress. At a young age she was hired as a dance model for Walt Disney Studios animated films. Later she performed as an actress and dancer in film musicals, and in 1957 had a TV show based on song and dance. She has also done creative choreography for liturgy, and served as a dialogue and movement coach for the 1978 TV miniseries, The Awakening Land, set in the late 18th century in the Ohio Valley.
Marjorie Celeste Belcher was born on September 2, 1919 in Los Angeles, California, to Hollywood dance director Ernest Belcher and his wife, Gladys Lee Baskette (née Rosenberg). She had an older half sister, Lina Basquette, who already was acting in silent films at the age of twelve. Lina was the daughter of her mother's first husband, Frank Baskette, who had committed suicide.
Marjorie began dancing at an early age as her sister had done. By age twelve she became a ballet instructor at her father's studio. She was hired by Walt Disney Studios as a dance model for their animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Her movements were copied to enhance the realism of the animated Snow White figure. Belcher later modeled for characters in other animated films: the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio (1940) and the Dancing Hippo in Fantasia.
Marge Belcher first married Art Babbitt (1907–1992), a top animator at Disney and creator of the Goofy animated character; they divorced in 1940.
In 1947 she married another dancer, Gower Champion (1919–1980). They had two sons, Blake and actor Gregg Champion. They divorced in 1973.
She married last to director Boris Sagal on January 1, 1977. He was killed on May 22, 1981, in an accident during the production of the miniseries World War III. He was the father of actress Katey Sagal.
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