I love Los Angeles: Barrie Chase: 10/20/25

"Barrie Chase is here," I said to friend and neighbor Gary Cotti. The name didn't immediately click for him. So I whispered, "Mutual, I'm sure."

"WHAT?! WHERE?!"

He didn't yell, but his response was emphatic and warrants all-caps.

We were at the Hammer Museum for a double dose of Fred Astaire and Ms. Chase. Restorations of two NBC specials from the 1950s – An Evening with Fred Astaire (1958) and then Another Evening with Fred Astaire (1959) both directed by Bud Yorkin – neither of which had been seen on TV since the late 1980s on the Disney Channel. With "In Living Color" NBC bits and Chrysler commercials intact, the program drew a very full house of people, and more than a few of them seemed to know Ms. Chase personally.

Backing up, if you've seen White Christmas then you know Barrie Chase as chorus girl Doris, who serves up the ingratiating, dim-witted, line, "Mutual, I'm sure," to Bing Crosby. He shuts her down, causing Doris to explore an entire range of petulant, pissed off facial expressions before slam-dunking: "Well, I LIKE THAT! Without so much as a 'kiss my foot' or 'have an apple!'"* The next time you see it, watch her and not the men, because she's perfect.

Barrie Chase was more than that moment, of course. Her primary job was dancer, and she danced all over the place. She appeared in films like Brigadoon, Les Girls, Kismet, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. She was an assistant choreographer to Jack Cole** and then Fred Astaire's chosen dance partner for his series of four TV specials between 1958 and 1968.

She's 92 now and participated in a Q&A between the screening of the specials, where she expressed fond memories of working with Astaire. She was as cool and sharp – and occasionally as slyly shade-dispensing – as you'd hope her to be. She introduced friend and fellow dancer George Chakiris (also in White Christmas and, of course, West Side Story) who was seated in the audience, and she was surprised by the children of Bud Yorkin in attendance, who related the story that Astaire had told Yorkin that Chase was his favorite dance partner, to which she responded that Astaire was always "diplomatic."

Best of all, the specials themselves. Not only are they historically important and award-winning, but they're a blast to watch, the kind of television you wish still existed. An Evening with Fred Astaire is available on YouTube, but Another Evening is only on the internet in bits and pieces. But what pieces!

There's this: Ken Nordine recites "word jazz" while Chase slinks around Astaire as a perfect comically blank beatnik.

And then this: "Sophisticated Lady," with Chase refusing the attention of the chorus boys because Astaire is wooing her. Surprise: Astaire is wearing a jarringly realistic (thanks to Planet of the Apes makeup artist John Chambers) Alfred E. Neuman mask. It must be seen to be believed.

*Watch enough TCM and you'll hear people saying "Well, I like that!" when they mean quite the opposite. I wish it would make a comeback.

**Speaking of watching TCM, catch Designing Woman sometime to witness Jack Cole taking down the bad guys at the end in what amounts to a dance brawl.