Been Rich All My Life (2006)
"Been Rich All My Life" follows the unlikliest troupe of tap dancing divas. They are the "Silver Belles," five former showgirls now aged 84-96, performing to standing ovations, as sassy as they ever were.
   
Heather Lyn MacDonald (Producer/director): The founder of Toots Crackin Productions, is the maker of the Sundance Award-winning documentary feature BALLOT MEASURE 9. Called a political thriller, the film won such other awards as a Teddy Bear at Berlin, Best of the Fest at Edinburgh, People’s Choice at Denver, Grand Jury Prize at Los Angeles Outfest, and a GLAAD Media Award for best documentary. It was released theatrically by Zeitgiest Films prior to broadcast on Cinemax, the Sundance Channel, then PBS affiliates. Other award winning documentaries which Heather directed and edited include KIEV BLUE and KITCHEN TALK USSR, both shot in the Soviet Union just prior to its collapse. Prior to filmmaking, Heather was for many years an actor and is a long-standing member of Actor's Equity, SAG and AFTRA. She is also a screenwriter, and her photos have been exhibited at galleries in New York City.

Susanne Fosse: Did you always want to become a documentary filmmaker?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: My mother was a still photographer, and she taught me skills, so I was always making photographs. But in terms of ambition and career, I wanted to be an actor from a very early age -- so that's what I studied, and what I did for a living until my late 30's. Jobs got harder to get, I pondered my future and went back to school to study cinematography, took a documentary production class the first semester, made a half-hour doc there -- and I was hooked. It seemed to use all of me.

Susanne Fosse: You had a lot of success with documentary film Ballot Measure 9, which screened at Sundance. What drew you to the story of the Silver Belles?


Heather Lyn MacDonald: Very simple: I read a small article in the newspaper about them, rehearsing a show they were about to do at the Cotton Club -- dancers in their 80s and 90s, actually performing for a paying audience! These were ladies I wanted to meet. Also, I had tap danced with great fervour in my acting years and was a great aficionado. I didn't hesitate a moment before I was on the phone to meet them.

  
 

Susanne Fosse: Bertye, Cleo, Marion, Fay and Elaine are incredibly comfortable with the camera. Did they want to see any of the footage while you were shooting?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: They never asked to see footage. They are unpretentious women (who manage at the same time to be divas). However, I was concerned that they see the material, because what if someone didn't wake up one day, and they didn't get to see what I was working toward? Cleo teased me once, "Are you going to finish this before I die, Heather?" Whenever I cut a sample tape for fundraising I'd take it to a rehearsal for them to watch. They’d say, “That’s just like us, that’s how we are. Oh, look at Bertye!” And periodically I invited all of them to my house, fed and wined them, and showed them the rough cut as it was coming together. I wanted them to see that it was going to be a real movie, because it was taking some time for me to complete it (4 years total of shooting, editing, finishing). Not once did anyone make a suggestion or complain about something being missing or needing to be edited out. They were pleased, and they have, of course, enjoyed the plaudits when they appear with the film. They get mobbed for autographs and photos, like rock stars. But they take it all totally in stride.


 
 

.

Susanne Fosse: You decided not to use voiceover narrative, but let the Belles tell their own story. Was that a conscious choice?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: Absolutely. I have a bias against VO narration. It can be used to good effect, but for the most part, I find it far less interesting, and generally more of a barrier to the characters. It's predominant in broadcast documentaries, and it certainly makes it easier to tell a story more efficiently and to edit more quickly. I might have to sift through all the material to find the bits of voices that might just edit together, in some form, to more or less make a point. The audience also has to work a bit more, but they get drawn into the people more intimately. So I prefer it.

Susanne Fosse:: The Belles were a part of a great musical history, and a lot of film archive from the 1930's has been lost or destroyed. How much time did you spend researching the archives?

Heather Lyn MacDonald:I spent a week or so in Washington DC at the Library of Congress and the National Archives, looking first for the material I could get without license fees. The LOC has a collection of dozens of African-American musicals made specifically for Black audiences in the 30s and 40s, never copywritten. And the National Archives has thousands of hours of material from World War II, commercial newsreels, and the raw footage from newsreels. Then I contacted 3 commercial historical film archives, who themselves have done all the collecting from many sources (and they have some of the same things as the LOC and NA). I gave them a list of search terms, and they collectively sent me about 10 hours of material to sift through. It was pretty easy, though their license fees are quite steep, as they charge by the second. They got a goodly chunk of the budget.

.

Susanne Fosse: The Belles dance tap, but there is a strong jazz element to
their moves. Do you think their influence with Jazz dance is greater
than they have been credited?


Heather Lyn MacDonald: Oh yes. To be clear, the Silver Belles aren’t really tapping when they perform these days, they took the taps off their shoes as they climbed further into their 80s. (Fay and Marion still tap vigorously when they teach, though) – so you see their loose, smooth style more clearly. It’s not so much about the steps, but about feeling the music. It seems to me that jazz and tap and the music seamlessly connected during their time, during the jazz age, the Harlem Renaissance. What they did as black chorus dancers was much different than the white precision chorus lines then. The Harlem dancers each had their individual style: they were dancing together, but each doing their own thing, based on their relationships with the music and the musicians. They spoke the same language as the musicians, they scatted the rhythm. Actually, when you see younger tap dancers work beside the Silver Belles, you see the difference – the ladies are all loose, just kind of feeling it, and the young dancers are comparatively stiff, concentrating on the steps and doing them right (“and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4”).


Susanne Fosse: The group goes through an uncertain spell when Cleo falls down the stairs. How did you keep your film focus during that time?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: For a few minutes I was frightened, oh, I wouldn’t be able to finish the film with both Cleo and Bertye in hospitals. And then, of course that became the plot point, would the group continue, would Cleo walk, would she dance. I didn’t lose focus with Cleo, I just had to keep pestering to get into her rehab sessions. I lost some focus with Bertye, in terms of being a filmmaker, because I just wanted to spend time with her once she was moved to a nursing home, and for months I went to visit her without my camera. Luckily I had enough shots to pull that part of the story together.

Susanne Fosse: The film has been incredibly popular with audiences. How did the film screenings with them go?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: The audiences have been very appreciative; they fall in love with the ladies and are inspired by them -- as I continue to be, I find them awesome. As I mentioned, when the ladies are present at a screening, they are treated like rock stars after the film – people get to their feet, and reach out to shake hands or just touch the ladies as they pass. Ushers scurry to get chairs for them so they can sit when the people surround them with questions and requests for autographs. Kids love them, too. They’re very classy dames. They never expected such a reception in their lifetimes, but they’ve been quietly enjoying it, certainly. For them, they enjoy knowing that they are passing something along, that they’ve made a mark.

Susanne Fosse: The group end each glorious evening with the 'Shim Sham Shimmy' dance. What's its significance?

Heather Lyn MacDonald: For tap dancers it is their “national anthem.” Everyone knows it, though they might do certain steps slightly differently. After any tap show, all the performers dance the Shim Sham together, and dancers in the audience might come up to join them. Willie Bryant and Leonard Reid are credited with first dancing it in the 20s, they passed it along to dancers they worked with, and it’s been done ever since. Swing dancers also do a different version of it.

Screening on Thursday 22nd March 07