Gene Coletta arrives with friends earlier this month for a spring dance and birthday celebration. From left, Cheryl Racco, Coletta, Ghislaine Lacerte, Cheryl Johnson, Marsha Caranci and Joan DioDotti.
A white limousine rolls to a stop on the circular driveway at Lake Pearl Luciano’s in Wrentham, Mass. Gene Coletta, also known as Johnny Hollywood, steps out looking dapper, champagne glass in hand, a huge grin on his face.
He arrives with an entourage of five glamorous women, who will waltz or swing with the charmer around the ballroom later that evening.
Before Coletta can saunter onto the gleaming parquet floor, he is greeted by several dozen well-wishers. Suddenly a chorus of “Happy Birthday” erupts from the crowd. It’s a surprise party for Coletta, hosted by K & S Music. Coletta has reached a milestone many people never see — he is turning 90. To celebrate, he is doing what he loves, something he has done well for the past 37 years — ballroom dancing.
As his female entourage huddles around him, he flashes a devilish grin.
“I wish I were 40!” he quips. Later smiling broadly he said, “I’ve never partied like this.”
Coletta first donned a pair of dancing shoes when he attended Esek Hopkins School on Charles Street in Providence. The school offered dance classes in the lunchroom. It was probably 1935 or thereabouts, Coletta recalls. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the Oval Office and fascist leaders and the Nazis were forming alliances, a prelude to World War II.
For Coletta, life was sheltered and protected.
“It looked like fun,” he says. He remembers dancing with a Florence Cascione. They were in a waltz contest. “Her heart was beating on my chest. You are holding a girl in your arms. There is a challenge. You are learning there. Learning the routine and dancing.”
He says everyone danced ballroom back then. It was very much a part of the social fabric of his universe. At Hope High School, there were a few dances. His group of friends didn’t do Latin dances at that time, he says. On other nights, Coletta had his favorite spots to shake a leg.
“I used to go to Rhodes on the Pawtuxet on Wednesdays and Saturdays,” he says. “What they did those days was the foxtrot and the jitterbug.
But that was high school and shortly after he graduated, the United States was fully engaged in war. Coletta joined the Navy.
It was September 1942, nearly a year after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, when he went to boot camp in Newport to prepare for his tour of duty in World War II. Less than a year later, Coletta was in the Pacific on the USS Denver, which was commissioned in October 1942. He recalls many details of the tour:
“[It] went from Guadalcanal all the way up Japan. I was in the Navy, in a light cruiser and there were the heavy cruisers and battleships at the beginning of the war. We were in the midst of all the battles and the invasions of all the islands. They were torpedoed by 70 planes. We had orders to abandon ship. They were trying to get to the supplies.
“We operated with three other light cruisers. When I went aboard, I was only a seaman. I became the supervisor on watch, radioman 2nd class. The Philippines is where we got hit again, kamikaze, suicide bomber. I could see him coming down. With all those ships in the harbor, there [were] at least 50 ships in the harbor, I don’t know why he picked on us. That was the start of the suicide planes. We were just plain lucky — we got torpedoed and it knocked out the propeller. We were in shark-infested waters.
“We got a commendation from the Secretary of the Navy and a commendation from the president of the Philippines. We were awarded 11 battle stars. I spent three years and eight months in the Navy. I came out in April 1946. I was discharged in Boston. You learn that war is hell. War is not a very pleasant thing. We were very lucky.”
After the war, Coletta returned to Rhode Island and put in for federal employment and went to work at Quonset Point Naval Base. He took courses at Bryant College, as it was called then. He settled into a regular routine. He got a job as an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service, and married a girl from Oklahoma. He didn’t do much dancing during that time because his wife didn’t like to dance, he says. The couple didn’t have children. By 1974, Coletta’s marriage was ending.
Now living in the house formerly owned by his parents, he didn’t like hanging out in lounges and seldom went out. His sister, Albina Coletta, came to visit him often.
“She said, ‘You can’t sit at home and mope,’ ” Coletta recalls. “She said, ‘You were always a good dancer. Why don’t you go to those ballrooms?’ I decided I’ll try every one of them.”
Coletta reacquainted himself with one of his passions — dance.
He started going to Roseland in Taunton, and other places in the New England area. Things started percolating for Coletta. He ran into an old classmate who had a friend who knew how to do the Latin dances: cha-cha, rumba and samba. Coletta, blessed with the gift of natural dancing ability, only really needed one lesson.
“She taught me the basics. It made me want to learn more,” he says. “They would say I was one of the better dancers. I learned fast. I went to the places where there were more accomplished dancers.”
And Coletta fit in at these places like a puzzle piece. He began going to other dance spots and hanging out with people who trained as professional ballroom dancers. There were weekends of dance workshops in New York, and more lessons with other dancers in which Coletta perfected his Latin styles. In 1979, he retired as an auditor. He put down his calculator and pulled out his dancing shoes for good. He started going to some local places to dance, including the Dancing Feelin’ in Warwick. There he would find his niche and friends that have lasted a lifetime.
Even when Coletta is not actually dancing the samba, he’s watching it on “Dancing with the Stars” –– which he finds amusing.
He appreciates the myriad of dance styles the celebrities perform. Occasionally, he is engaged with the weekly drama of who’s staying and who’s leaving. And probably like a lot of viewers, Coletta is as critical as any of the show’s judges.
“This group is not as good. If I have to go to the bathroom, I get up when those two big girls come on. Neither of them can dance… but I give them credit for trying,” says Coletta, referring to some of this season’s celebrities. “Ralph, the one with the Italian last name, he’s good. One guy was terrible. The first time I saw him, I was thinking, he can’t even walk.”
His commentary sounds a little harsh for an old guy sitting in his living room, but ballroom dancing is not only a spectator sport for him. Coletta is part of a regular crowd of die-hard hoofers that come on Saturday nights to K&S Music, run by Kathy and Bryan Soscia on Saturdays. Every year the couple organizes a spring dance, and realized the date for this year’s dance fell on the eve of Coletta’s birthday. They wanted to surprise him with a limousine ride and a swanky bash with all the trimmings. They invited more than 200 people to a party that took place last week.
“He’s very special,” Kathy Soscia said. “He’s just has a wonderful personality. He is kind to everyone. He has taken care of people. He’s loyal. You can count on him.”
Cheryl Johnson, Coletta’s favorite dancer partner for the past 15 years, was among the five women who arrived with Coletta to his party. She said she is proud of him and happy to share in his birthday.
“It’s an emotional feeling,” Johnson says. “We just hope we can reach that age…because we all have that love of dance, like him. I think Gene is the oldest person here.”
Whisked inside Lake Pearl like a true celebrity, Coletta doesn’t waste time hitting the dance floor.
One of his first dances for the night is with Johnson.
Coletta likes to dance with her, because he says she is a natural. Johnson knows his routines, especially the more intricate dance styles he likes.
Coletta is adept and precise in his movements, easily swinging Johnson around and then back under an arm, over and around, striking a dramatic pose and back around again. His command is artful and exacting. He appears to move better than some people who are decades younger. It’s a natural skill.
“There aren’t too many people who can do a samba. It’s the toughest, the most difficult,” Coletta said. “When I dance with [Cheryl], I can feel it. When I dance with girls who don’t know my routine, it is work. It’s not fluid. When they see me dance with Cheryl…they see that fluidness.”
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