Roy was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 27, 1921. He grew up in the then-small town of Alhambra, where he attended Alhambra High School. Like many young people, he took basic dance lessons during that time, where he learned the box step. He would practice it while walking five miles home from the lessons with a friend, and they would occasionally stop to try out the step with each other. After Roy got into swing dancing, he would forever think of that box step as the fundamental basic of all the swing dances.
Roy fell in love with swing in the mid-30s, right at the beginning of its popularity in Los Angeles. He was soon so obsessed that he was dancing every night of the week, often twice a day on weekends.
At his high school, the group of passionate swing dancers called themselves the Alhambra Alligators, and Roy was their president. They’d all pile into a friend’s car and drive to dances around the area. They’d go to any ballroom. If a dress code demanded ties, they’d take their socks off and tie them around their shirt collars. Roy was famous for his crazy shirts — his mother made them out of curtains. They didn’t last long, though. The fabric was not meant to be sweated through, and the colors would run. But he and his partners thought bright apparel was key to catching people’s eyes.
Roy took pride in his dancing. He didn’t like to call it “jitterbug” (he called it “swing”) and didn’t like to do “hokey” steps like the kind that were trendy among many competitors and film dancers in order to look wild or zany. He loved to go to Central Avenue — the “Little Harlem” of Los Angeles, as it was called. It was Los Angeles’s primary Black neighborhood, famous for its dance venues like Club Alabam. He loved dancing with the Black dancers and watching them dance, and his group would meet up with them at other dances around town. He recognized the role they had in dancing the Southern California favorites like Balboa, “Swing,” Shag, and Lindy, and the inspiration they gave him and other dancers.
Roy grew himself a name in the swing dancing community at the time. In 1939, when Roy was 17, Look magazine got in touch with him and his friends in order to do a photo shoot, which is where several of his famous pictures come from. (Modern SoCal swing dancer Beth Grover over at “V is for Vintage” did a fantastic spread of those pictures
That same year, Roy attended a dance in the Santa Monica ballroom and got spotted by film studio scouts looking for swing dancers who knew what they were doing. Roy got put on the list as a studio swing dancer, and his life changed.
Despite being recognized by magazines and studio executives as a great swing dancer, Roy did not wholeheartedly agree. He always said his partners, like Snookie Bishop, were the real dancer’s worth watching — he just happened to be holding their hands.
During World War II, Roy enlisted and was sent to work at the military post office in New York. By that time, he was not swing dancing very much and did not go out social dancing. But he was curious enough to visit the Savoy Ballroom, which he did during the day. After the war, he started using his GI bill to take lessons in any kind of dance that would help him in films. He had perfect timing, because the golden age of Hollywood musicals was around the corner.
He was a backup dancer in many films, including Singing in the Rain. His teeth were so bright that when he’d smile on set Gene Kelly would tell him “Turn those things down.” He even got to relive his swing dancing days when he was cast in 1954’s Living It Up! (He’s the one in the zebra-print shirt.)
For full article and Interview: Author: Bobby White, Swungover: Title: R.I.P. Roy Damron (1920-1921) May 21, 2020.
https://swungover.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/r-i-p-roy-damron-1921-2020