“You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying...in sweat,” said Debbie Allen as dance instructor Lydia Grant.
The role of Grant was a small one, but that often quoted line is the heart of the original 1980 film, the subsequent TV series and now, the movie update.
“Fame” which opens Friday, follows a group of students at a fictional performing arts high school in New York as they spend four years honing their craft, figuring out who they are and hoping to get hired when it is all over. The characters will seem familiar to fans of the original: the guy who never measures up, the girl who can’t loosen up and the dude from the wrong side of the tracks. It’s hard not to wonder if Denise played by Naturi Naughton is Irene Cara’s Coco or if Gene Anthony Ray’s Leroy has been resurrected as Collins Pennie’s Malik? Allen is back as Principal Angela Simms, and she makes it clear that she didn’t leave a lot of room between the two ladies.
“I feel like Fame belongs to me,” said Allen, the only cast member to be featured in all versions of Fame. “I was there from the beginning wiping Gene Anthony Ray’s brow when we were shooting. When I got the call, I didn’t hesitate. It was something I absolutely wanted to do.”
The original movie musical defined a generation earning Oscars for best song and best original score. It spawned a television series which ran from 1982 to 1987. And most importantly, it had the whole world wearing leg warmers.
The update is essentially the same story, said Allen, and now seems as good a time as any to tell it again. “In film, musical movies are happening right now,” Allen observed. “The world is singing and dancing.”
Scenes such as the lunchroom jam session, student in crisis and graduation finale survive, though only one song is reprised when Naughton belts out the 1981 Oscar-nominated song, “Out Here on My Own.”
So other than the rap and hip-hop inserted into the music mix, what makes the new version of “Fame” so new? Maybe something that has little to do with the movie.
Allen said her biggest concern for young performing arts students is the lack of arts education in schools. “When I went to school back in the ’60s and ’70s, there was music, dance and drama in every school. You are lucky if you even have books now,” said Allen who would go on to build a career in film and television, as an actress, choreographer, producer and director. It’s hard to picture this new cast of young performers having as long and memorable a career as Allen.
While there are more opportunities for aspiring performing artists today in the form of music videos and musical films, real success is not one event, one commercial or one movie, Allen said. “How do you continue to regenerate yourself? You can’t just do the same thing. You have to find ways to continue to explore your creativity,” she said.
In 2001, compelled to improve the training opportunities in performing arts, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in L.A. Students from the school have gone on to Broadway, television and movies, she said.
“They don’t have to become Debbie Allen, or Bob Fosse, or Shirley MacLaine,” said Allen, or Principal Simms or Lydia Grant. “I’m just trying to pass the baton and raise another generation of creative people.”
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