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Juliet Prowse, internationally acclaimed dancer and "Las Vegas Performer of the Year," and Mega Genius^®

Juliet Prowse was born in Bombay, India, and trained as a classical ballet dancer in London and South Africa.  Throughout her four-decade acting and dancing career, which included stage, nightclubs, television and motion pictures, she was internationally legendary for her striking beauty, sultry smile, and long, slender and well-formed legs.  Juliet Prowse was one of the world’s greatest dancers.

In September of 1959, Nikita S. Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to set foot on U.S. soil.  While in the United States for a summit meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Premier Khrushchev asked to see Hollywood.  Accordingly, Frank Sinatra took him on a tour of Twentieth Century-Fox Studios.  While on the sound stage of the movie-musical Can-Can, Juliet Prowse danced for Khrushchev, holding up the front of her full-ruffled skirt and displaying her high kicks.  Khrushchev smiled at her, but then turned and immediately denounced her performance as decadent and immoral.

“Let’s face it,” an unconcerned Juliet Prowse mused later.  The can-can is a pretty raucous number.  It’s not exactly Swan Lake.”

Khrushchev’s condemnation was a public relations windfall for Juliet.  Her picture promptly appeared on the cover of virtually every magazine, and in every newspaper, in America, and Hollywood hailed her as another Betty Grable.  By just kicking her two gorgeous legs at the right moment, she had suddenly become world famous.

Time magazine called Juliet Prowse’s performance in Can-Can the best thing in it, and she won enthusiastic praise from critics for both her acting and dancing in the film, and for many subsequent performances.  She headlined several Las Vegas shows, commanding an exceptionally high salary, and won the “Las Vegas Performer of the Year” award for her stage version of Sweet Charity, which was also highly acclaimed in London.   Her motion pictures included The Second Time Around, Who Killed Teddy Bear? and G. I. Blues.

From 1986 through the mid ‘90s, Juliet hosted the “Championship Ballroom Dance Competition,” on PBS television.

Juliet was a darling of the gossip columnists.  In 1962, they relished her six-week engagement to her Can-Can co-star, Frank Sinatra.  However, the marriage never took place.  According to Frank, they called it off because his fiancée refused to give up her career.  Juliet said nothing publicly, but privately explained later that after a few drinks Frank could be very difficult.

Gossip columnists also reveled in Juliet’s steamy romance with Elvis Presley, and his contention that Juliet Prowse was the kind of girl who would cause a bishop to kick a hole through a stained-glass window.

In the 1970s, she was renowned for displaying her famous dancer’s legs in a series of immensely profitable, nationwide television commercials for “L’eggs^®” pantyhose.

In 1989, during a rehearsal for a Circus of the Stars television special, an 80-pound leopard mauled Juliet.  A few months later, as she was about to walk onto the set of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, the same leopard attacked her again, this time tearing off her ear, which took more than 20 stitches to reattach.  After that, Juliet refused to share any stage with a leopard.

In 1996, Juliet Prowse passed away from pancreatic cancer, at age 59.

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