Vernon Castle
actor, writer
- Birth name:
- Vernon Blyth
- Born:
- 1887-05-02, Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK
- Died:
- 1918-02-15, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
- Professions:
- actor, writer
Biography
Vernon Castle glided from Broadway chorus lines into history’s spotlight. Between 1906 and 1913 he hoofed through nine New York musicals—*The Sunshine Girl*, *The Lady of the Slipper*, *The Hen-Pecks*, *The Summer Widowers*, *Old Dutch*, *The Midnight Sons*, *The Mimic World*, *The Girl Behind the Counter*, and *About Town*—before partnering on-stage and off with wife Irene. In 1914 the duo sparked Irving Berlin’s *Watch Your Step*, then parlayed their razor-sharp footwork into a coast-to-coast dance craze, running chic New York studios and commanding up to $1,000 for sixty minutes of instruction. When the Great War intervened, Castle traded tuxedo tails for a flight instructor’s uniform; weeks before the armistice he died in a crash, leaving a ballroom empire and a legend Hollywood revived two decades later in *The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle* (1939).
