Marge Champion

Marge Champion is an American dancer choreographer, and pedagogue. In addition, she also worked in film and appeared in a number of television variety shows.

Champion was born Marjorie Celeste Belcher in Los Angeles, California to Hollywood dance director Ernest Belcher and Gladys Lee Baskette. She began dancing while very young and became a ballet instructor at her father’s studio at age twelve. She was hired as a teen by Disney as a dance model for their film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They copied her movements to enhance the realism of Snow White’s movement. She later modelled for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio and the Dancing Hippo in Fantasia.

She became a Hollywood legend with second husband Gower Champion as an accomplished dancing team during MGM’s Golden Age of the 1940s and 50s. MGM wanted them to remake Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, but only one, Roberta, remade as Lovely to Look At, was completed. The couple refused to remake any of the others, the rights to which were still owned by RKO.

Marge and Gower appeared in many successful films for MGM, such as the 1951 version of Show Boat and their own starring vehicle, Everything I Have Is Yours.