Gregory Oliver Hines was born on February 14, 1946, in New York City’s Harlem—a cultural mecca where Black brilliance was nurtured and celebrated.
He and his older brother, Maurice, became a dancing duo—Hines, Hines & Dad—under the guidance of their father, who played drums for their act.
By the time he hit his teenage years, Hines was already a force, but he craved reinvention and made the decision to move to California in the 1970s, experimenting with music and fronting a rock band, Severance. While he was widely known as a tap dancer, Hollywood soon came calling, and by the ’80s, he was not just a tap icon but a bonafide star.
Hines married dance therapist Patricia Panella in 1968, with whom he had a daughter named Daria just two years into the marriage. The pair sadly ended their marriage in 1973, the same year Hines left the group “Hines, Hines, and Dad” after becoming tired of the never-ending life on the road.
“I don’t remember not dancing. I could always do it. When I got to be about 25, I became very disenchanted. […] I moved to Venice [California], and Pam supported me for a couple of years. It was a great time,” he said in an interview with Don Shewey. “I think everybody at some point—especially if they’ve been working their whole lives—should take time out and think about what they’ve done. That period of reflection meant a lot to me. I grew up a lot. With the family, I always had a buffer. After a while, I didn’t know how to take care of myself. I was 27 years old and very immature. During that period in Venice, I found out how to take care of myself.”
Hines was the moment in the mid-’80s, effortlessly commanding the screen with his signature charm and flamboyant footwork. He and his brother Maurice channeled old Hollywood grace in The Cotton Club (1984), evoking the legendary Nicholas Brothers. His rise to fame was catapulted by a series of memorable parts, including his role alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights (1985), in the cop comedy Running Scared (1986) and in Tap (1989), which marked Sammy Davis Jr.’s final film performance.
Hines continued his reign into the ’90s, starring in the Forest Whitaker-directed movie Waiting to Exhale (1995) with Whitney Houston and later reuniting with her, Denzel Washington, and Courtney B. Vance in The Preacher’s Wife (1996).
Black representation was extremely important to Hines.
“The fact that we are now having African-American films directed and written by African-Americans is very important because that’s the only way to get a real true, honest point of view,” Hines told reporter Theresa Hawkins. “We have to take responsibility for our stories, which we are doing. Back in the mid-80s, when directors like Francis Coppola, John Sayles, Steven Spielberg, and Norman Jewison were turning out films like The Cotton Club, Brother From Another Planet, The Color Purple, and A Soldier’s Story, that’s the only way those films could have been made. It gave a lot of African-American actors work, and those films made some money. Now we have Spike Lee, Robert Townsend, the Hudlin Brothers, and Bill Duke.”
Hines even made his mark on TV, fronting The Gregory Hines Show (1997) and captivating audiences as the charming attorney, Ben Doucette, on Will & Grace.
In 1981, Hines married Pamela Koslow, who already had a daughter from a previous marriage. The couple welcomed their son Zachary in 1983. The marriage sadly ended in 2000.
Hines passed away from liver cancer on August 9, 2003, in New York City. He was 57.
