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Deney Terrio | |
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| Born | Denis George Mahan June 15, 1950 |
| Occupation(s) | Choreographer, television personality, actor |
Denis George Mahan (born June 15, 1950), better known as Deney Terrio, is an American choreographer and hosted the television musical variety series Dance Fever from 1979 to 1987. [1]
Raised in Titusville, Florida, [2] Terrio achieved fame as the dance coach and choreographer for John Travolta in the movie Saturday Night Fever (1977). During his heyday with Dance Fever , he appeared in a number of films, including The Idolmaker (1980), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), A Night in Heaven (1983) and Knights of the City (1986), and guest starred on popular television series of the time, including The Love Boat . Throughout the 1990s, he toured nightclubs, performing with Motion and judging dance contests.
Terrio has appeared on several VH1 specials and co-hosted the 2004 PBS special Get Down Tonight: The Disco Explosion , which featured many popular disco artists from the 1970s and actress Karen Lynn Gorney. During the show, Terrio and Gorney danced to Tavares’ live performance of "More Than a Woman", as Gorney had with Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
Terrio hosted his own disco radio show, Saturday Night Dance Party, on the Sirius Satellite Radio network, and is a choreographer and competitor at regional Dancing with the Stars competitions.
In 1991, Terrio sued Merv Griffin, the producer of Dance Fever, for sexual harassment; [3] the US$11.3 million case was later dismissed. [4] In 2015, Terrio sued the toy company Hasbro in a federal court for creating an animated gecko and toy figurine named Vinnie Terrio, alleging that his publicity rights were violated by the gecko and figurine. [5] In February 2016, Terrio and Hasbro settled his claims out of court. [6]
In the stand-up comedy special Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), Murphy makes a joke referencing an encounter with Terrio, prompting his father to inquire as to why he was with Terrio in the first place.
Terrio was referred to in the Steve Martin movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), in which Martin's character, a con man and hustler named Freddy Benson, poses as a disabled veteran as part of a plan to extract money from a rich woman. In order to induce her pity, Benson claims that he lost use of his legs after he found his girlfriend having sex with Terrio.
In the final episode of season 1 of Modern Family , Claire tells Phil he looks like Deney Terrio. Jay incorrectly replies that Terrio was a 1970s disco dancer from Ohio.
Terrio was also referenced in season 2 of Black Dynamite when he teamed up with funk-soul musician James Brown to compete against Black Dynamite and Cream Corn.
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor. He began acting in television before transitioning into a leading man in films. His accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award.
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 article by music writer Nik Cohn.
Saturday Night Fever is the soundtrack album from the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta. The soundtrack was released on November 15, 1977 by RSO Records. Prior to the release of Thriller by Michael Jackson, Saturday Night Fever was the best-selling album in music history, and still ranks among the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide, with sales figures of over 40 million copies.
Some films feature recognizable dance forms, demonstrating them, shedding light on their origin, or being the base of a plot.
The Hustle is a catch-all name for some disco dances which were extremely popular in the 1970s. Late 1970s, Bump, Hustle, Watergate and Spank were popular. It mostly refers to the unique partner dance done in nightclubs to disco music. Hustle has steps in common with Mambo and Salsa and basic steps are somewhat similar to Euro dance style "discofox", which emerged at about the same time and is more familiar in various European countries. Modern partner hustle is sometimes referred to as New York hustle, however, its original name is the Latin hustle.
Staying Alive is a 1983 American dance drama film and the sequel to Saturday Night Fever (1977). The film was directed by Sylvester Stallone, who co-produced and co-wrote the film with original Fever producer Robert Stigwood, and writer Norman Wexler. Staying Alive stars John Travolta, reprising his Saturday Night Fever role as Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Julie Bovasso, Viktor Manoel and Kevyn Morrow.
Karen Lynn Gorney is an American actress who had roles in television shows and films including the soap opera All My Children and the movie Saturday Night Fever.
Walter Anthony Murphy Jr. is an American composer, keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for the instrumental "A Fifth of Beethoven", a disco adaptation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony which topped the charts in 1976 and was featured on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in 1977. Further classical-disco fusions followed, such as "Flight '76", "Toccata and Funk in 'D' Minor" "Bolero", and "Mostly Mozart", but were not as successful.
Janet Marie Gretzky is an American actress. She is married to retired ice hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky.
Jay Gorney was an American theater and film song writer.
"Saturday Night Grease" is the second episode of the eighth series of the British television comedy series The Goodies. The 65th episode of the show overall, it was first broadcast at 8.10pm on 21 January 1980 on BBC2.
Dance Fever is an American musical variety television series that aired weekly in syndication from January 1979 to September 1987.
Discofox or disco fox is a social partner dance which evolved in Europe in the mid-1970s as a rediscovery of the dance hold in the improvisational disco dance scene dominated by solo dancing, approximately at the same time when the hustle emerged in the United States. Both dances were greatly influenced by Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta. In various regions, it is also known under different names: disco hustle, swing fox, disco swing, and rock fox.
When Disco Ruled the World is a music documentary that aired on VH1 in 2005.
Renegade is an American rock n' roll band composed of Luis Cardenas, Kenny Marquez and Tony De La Rosa. Although all the band members hail from the United States, the band were among the most successful Hispanic or "Chicano rock" acts founded in the United States during the 1980s. Throughout Latin America, the band is known as Los Renegados.
Lester Wilson was an African-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. Wilson attended the Juilliard School. Bob Fosse cast him in a 1963 revival of Pal Joey at the New York City Center. Wilson toured London with Sammy Davis Jr. in Golden Boy. In 1969, he was responsible with 24 of his dancers for the choreography of Johnny Hallyday's show at the Palais des Sports in Paris.
The Very Reverend Sir Monti Rock III is an American musician and performer.
"Saturday Night Glee-ver" is the sixteenth episode of the third season of the American musical television series Glee, and the sixtieth overall. Written by Matthew Hodgson and directed by Bradley Buecker, the episode aired on Fox in the United States on April 17, 2012, and features a tribute to the 1970s movie Saturday Night Fever and its Bee Gees–infused soundtrack.
Forever Fever is a 1998 Singaporean musical comedy film written and directed by Glen Goei. It stars Adrian Pang as a man who becomes interested in disco once he sees Saturday Night Fever. As he competes in a local disco contest, John Travolta's character enters the real world and gives him advice. The film was released internationally by Miramax and was the first Singaporean film to perform well internationally.