Tap dancer Norman Wallace, whose acrobatic dance moves took him from vaudeville to "The Ed Sullivan Show," died in his sleep Sept 10 at a Jamaica Plain nursing home. He was 89.
Mr. Wallace, who performed at the Cotton Club in Harlem and around the world with his brother Scott, had lived in Boston since the late 1960s and worked for more than a decade as the bell captain at the Copley Plaza Hotel.
He suffered from Parkinson's Disease and lived at Sherrill House for the past two years.
"He was one of the most creative people on the planet," said tap dancer Josh Hilberman, who became Mr. Wallace's friend and one of his guardians. "He was a creative force."
Born in Jersey City, N.J., Mr. Wallace never had a formal dance lesson. In 1989, he told the Globe he learned his art from other dancers, including the great Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
"He would show you some stuff, but he was very cagey, so you had to just watch him and learn," Mr. Wallace said.
Mr. Wallace shared the stage with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and a "tough, skinny kid" named Frank Sinatra, he told the Globe.
On the vaudeville circuit, he danced in drag with The Crackerjacks, a renowned comedy troupe formed in 1914. He perfected his acrobatic style, running up walls and flipping backwards.
The Wallace Brothers got their first big break in the 1930s when they won the "Major Bowes' Amateur Hour" show. They won fame at the Cotton Club as a last-minute replacement for the Nicholas Brothers.
The Wallaces played the London stage and Paris nightclubs and gave a performance for the queen of England.
Their tap and comedy routine hit "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1963. Scott Wallace died in 1998.
In the 1950s, Mr. Wallace married Alwildia Baggette of Chicago, and the couple had four children. She died in 1991, and a son, Michael of Boston, died in 1998. The Wallaces separated in the 1960s but never divorced, according to the family.
Karen Malusardi, who now lives in Italy, said she saw little of her father as she was growing up but vividly remembers his appearance on a Chicago children's TV show called "Bozo Circus" in 1975. Mr. Wallace looked into the camera and dedicated his performance to her.
"The other kids were shocked," she said.
She and her brothers visited with Mr. Wallace many times in recent years and enjoyed seeing his many wire sculptures.
Mr. Wallace sculpted the icons of his era and his colleagues in his favorite medium, "trash," he told friends. He hauled home fallen branches from Boston Common and made intricate carvings.
Mr. Wallace's family is seeking someone to house the artworks.
"He was incredible," his son Butch of Chicago said. "He knew all the greats."
Mr. Wallace decorated his Roxbury apartments over the years with his autographed photos of Sinatra, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., and Pearl Bailey, his son said.
Pamela Raff, another Boston tap dancer, recalled performing in a show in the 1980s where Mr. Wallace was on the bill.
"He started to tell me jokes backstage," said Raff, who runs a studio in Allston. "He got me laughing so hard that suddenly I hear my music. I'm doubled over in laughter and I hear the introduction to my music. I grab my shoes, run out there, and Norman is laughing at me.
"I got up and danced and felt like I was floating on air," she said.
She said she thinks of Mr. Wallace each time she tells jokes backstage to loosen up performers before a show. "It gets the connective juices flowing," she said.
In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Wallace leaves another son, Christopher of Chicago; and four grandchildren.
A graveside service will be held today at 2 p.m. in Mount Hope Cemetery in Mattapan