page_title: Harriet Hoctor
section_title: Film
hierarchical_section_title: Harriet Hoctor / Biography / Film
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Harriet Hoctor from the trailer for The Great Ziegfeld
context_page_description: Harriet Hoctor was a ballerina, dancer, actress and instructor. Composer George Gershwin composed a symphonic orchestral piece specifically for Hoctor in the film Shall We Dance.
context_section_description: In the late 1930s, she was a dancer in a number of Hollywood movies. She appeared as herself in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Billy Rose's Casa Manana Revue (1938). Shall We Dance featured Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Hoctor danced with Astaire. Hoctor missed at least two chances to star in major Hollywood movies with Fred Astaire. In 1935, Hollywood gossip queen Louella Parsons reported that Astaire and Rogers were splitting up and that Hoctor would take the role in Shall We Dance meant for Rogers, but Rogers decided to take the part after all. However, Hoctor was consoled for the loss with "Hoctor's Ballet", which appears at the end of the film. Two years later, in 1937, The New York Times announced Hoctor as the lead in the planned Astaire movie A Damsel in Distress, but Joan Fontaine eventually claimed the part.
caption: Harriet Hoctor as herself from the trailer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
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