Whenever music is on tap, nobody can stop this tune

Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap.

Add rhythm and a lot of gusto, and you have the sound of Tommy Tune. Tap-dancing is his profession. Broadway legend is his apt description. He's won 10 (count 'em) Tony Awards.

He brings both the past and the very impressive present to the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday as a part of the Virginia Arts Festival. Expect show biz the way show biz used to be and still is only on rare occasions.

Fred Astaire described tap-dancing as "right in there with ditch-digging when it comes to work." It's one of the few times that Tune disagreed with his icon. "Tap-dancing seems to be reborn every few years as the kids get with it," he said. "Actually, it's never gone away because it's a part of us - America. It started with clog dancing in Ireland and England. We adapted it to white tie and tails, and added grace. Sometime it's angry and from the streets. Sometime it's very New York penthouse, the way the 'swells' used to be."

It's hard to miss Tommy Tune. He's 6 feet 6-1/2 inches tall. Back in high school, he was sometimes called Looney Tune or Toothpick Tune. He didn't mind. He admits that the string-bean physique has lost him roles, but it's also won him some. "I was never cast as the prince, but, then, there are other roles, and being tall became my signature in a way."

This isn't the first time Tune will have been to Hampton Roads. The last was 37 years ago, and he remembers it vividly. "I was met by a girl at the airport who had a big sash on that read 'Miss Virgin.' I immediately wondered if her distinction was as the only virgin in the city. I thought it very curious, but she was a real cutie - a very pleasant girl." He learned later that this was Miss Virginia. The "ia" had dropped off her sash.

It was 1971, and he was in Norfolk for the premiere of the film "The Boy Friend," a musical directed by the flamboyant Ken Russell that co-starred Oscar winner Glenda Jackson and the fashion sensation of the time, Twiggy. The premiere was held at the Showcase Theater (no longer there) at the naval base end of Little Creek Road.

Tune was greeted at the theater by a different Miss Virginia (complete with "ia"). "She told me that she was the alternate Miss Virginia and that the other girl had a date that night," he recalls, laughing.

What Tune doesn't recall as readily is that he broke out crying at the post-screening party because he perceived that the reaction to the film was negative. Imagine a movie critic and an actor standing in the middle of the room, with the actor crying. Everyone thought the critic had been mean (by, maybe, telling the truth). Although there were attempts to placate him, he countered, in tears, with "It's the end of my movie career. The movie was awful, and I'll probably never make another movie."

He was right. He never did. But Broadway loomed. Broadway, after all, is where musicals thrive. His Tony Awards were as best featured actor for "Seesaw" (the musical version of "Two for the Seesaw" in which he danced with balloons); for choreographing "A Day in Hollywood. A Night in the Ukraine"; for both directing and choreographing "Nine" and "Grand Hotel"; for best actor, and choreographer for "My One and Only"; and for both directing and choreographing "The Will Rogers Follies."

Twiggy, whom he had met during filming of "The Boy Friend," was his leading lady in "My One and Only."

His one other movie appearance was in 1969 with Barbra Streisand in "Hello, Dolly!"

His new show is "Steps in Time: A Broadway Biography in Song and Dance."

"I got the idea," he said, "on New Year's Day this year. I woke up and I thought, 'Here you are, Tune. It's a new year. You've been in show business for almost 50 years, and you should have something to say.' " The show, co-starring the Manhattan Rhythm Kings, is the result.

He has been dancing ever since he was a baby back in Texas. "My parents told me that I'd be crawling across the floor and when music started playing, I'd kinda stand up and dance. When the music stopped, I'd crawl into the other room."

He took his first dance lesson at age 5. "It was half boys and half girls - 30 minutes of tap and 30 minutes of tumbling. The next year, when I came back, all the boys dropped out except me. It became 30 minutes of tap and 30 minutes of ballet. Then, I started growing. That did it. I grew tall - fast. I never liked tights anyway and, suddenly, I couldn't see myself ever being cast as the prince. But, then, I saw Fred Ast aire. He was wearing white tie and tails, and he was tap-dancing. Things were never the same. I traded my cowboy boots for tap shoes."

Another momentous event in his life was the first musical show he saw - "Damn Yankees," in Dallas.

Then, there was that magic moment when he saw his first Broadway show, "Happy Hunting" with Ethel Merman. "I never knew a woman could belt out a song like that, and there was that moment when the overture ends and the curtain goes up. I was hooked."

He became a star in "Seesaw," directed by Michael Bennett before Bennett himself became a legend by directing "A Chorus Line."

Tune's father was an oil rigger who later became a trainer of show horses. "I loved it when he began training horses. I'd study their gait. It's just like choreography. They are the most graceful animals, and I tried to put that into dance. In fact, I tried to put everything into dance. My father liked my tap-dancing and was glad I didn't go into ballet, as if I could. It's fortunate I became a dancer because I don't think anyone would give a check to a bank teller named Tommy Tune."

He's thrilled about working with the Manhattan Rhythm Kings. "It's just like a tennis game. Your game improves when you're up against top competitors. We're going to really put it down."

Tune still suggests the boyish tap-dancer backed by some of the great show tunes of all time.

He, quite incidentally, is 69 years old.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com.