Northglenn hoofer Gene GeBauer, who performed in six Broadway musicals, never lost a step. He not only taught dance lessons well into his 80s … he took dance lessons well into his 80s.

GeBauer led classes right up to the pandemic shutdown, said his wife, Judy, “because it was a pleasure for him to get up on his feet, put his tap shoes on and make noise.” And he took masters classes every chance he could, added his daughter, Amber Bryant, “because he just couldn’t stand still.” 

Seriously, it didn’t take much to get GeBauer to get up and dance. And what really tickled his toes, Bryant said, was the sophomoric 1990s animated TV show “Beavis and Butthead,” about two lowbrow teenage slackers who were known to twerk.

“My dad would laugh raucously whenever that show came on, and he would get up and join them,” Bryant said with a laugh. “My mom just hated it.”

GeBauer performed on Broadway alongside Carol Channing, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye and Betty Grable … and those were just some of his Dollys in the 1964 blockbuster “Hello, Dolly!” He also high-stepped with Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews in classics like “Once Upon a Mattress,” “Camelot” and the controversial “Oh! Calcutta!”

GeBauer died of lung disease on May 1, putting a coda to a life that was ever en pointe … and on point. He was 87.

He was born in Nebraska on June 28, 1934, to Harry and Audrey GeBauer, who raised him in Oregon. The family didn’t have much growing up, and that informed Gene’s lifelong work ethic. “If my father ever stole something as a kid, it would only be because he was legitimately hungry,” said Bryant. As an adult, she added, “No reason was a good reason to take off from work.”

When young Gene developed a heart condition that restricted him to bed for a year at age 11, his doctor encouraged him to then find a physical activity. GeBauer began taking ballet classes, which led to a lifetime of pivots from jazz to modern to other kinds of dance. He later credited  starting his life as a dancer in sickness for his enduring longevity 75 years later.

“When I committed to dance as a young man, I really worked hard,” GeBauer told me in a 2018 interview.  “Maybe I just built my body up so well that it hasn’t deteriorated.”

GeBauer did not move to New York until 1960 when he was already 24, but quickly made his Broadway debut in “Once Upon a Mattress,” which made Burnett a star. When he was cast in the original 1964 Broadway company of “Hello, Dolly!” he was already the ripe old dance age of 30.

He was one of the very first dancers chosen by legendary Director Gower Champion to be in that famed ensemble. “That was a thrill for me,” GeBauer said in that 2018 interview, when the 55th anniversary “Hello, Dolly!” national tour starring Betty Buckley was visiting Denver. “For some reason, Gower picked me out immediately. I was standing there watching all the other dancers audition, and he just told me he wanted me in the show, right there in front of everyone.” Champion later told GeBauer he liked that he was tall and had strong facial features that made him stand out from the crowd.

GeBauer had been convinced the show would be a bomb – until someone got hold of the glowing review from The New York Times at the opening-night party. “Hello Dolly!” went on to become the longest-running musical in Broadway history for its time.

GeBauer was one of the dancers who originated what is now considered one of the biggest ensemble showstoppers in Broadway history: The madcap “The Waiters’ Gallop.” It’s an extended, athletic dance that requires the waiters to perform complex acrobatic movements at lightning speed as they rush to prepare to say “hello” to Dolly Levi at their restaurant.

“Gower had us doing some really tough stuff,” GeBauer said. “We had to leap up into the air with our feet folded underneath us, and then land in a squatted position. And from that squatted position, we had to jump right back up 4 feet into the air again.

“Cripes!” GeBauer added with a laugh.

He stayed with the show until 1967, when remarkably forward-thinking producer David Merrick replaced the entire cast with African-American actors led by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway. GeBauer didn’t mind. He had landed wrong during one performance and suffered a back injury that bothered him – but never stopped him – for the rest of his life.

“You don’t get four years of employment on Broadway very often,” said GeBauer, who was ready to enter what he called “the actor phase” of his career. He was nearly 40 when he was cast in “Sugar,” the stage adaptation of the classic film “Some Like it Hot.”

He was 42 when he met a serious actor named Judy Hink at a Buddhist meeting Gene was hosting at his New York apartment in 1976. The connection was quick, and deep. “There was just something about Gene that was so steady and reliable and mature,” Judy said. “I also liked that he had a good sense of humor and was very spiritual in his Buddhist practice.”

They married that same year and in 1981 they welcomed the newcomer who would become Gene’s dance partner for life – daughter Amber. The family lived in Oregon and then Iowa, where Judy earned her master’s degree in playwriting and Gene got his bachelor’s degree — at age 57.

It was an unusual arrangement: “The University of Iowa wanted my mother in their master’s program so badly, they agreed to give dad a free college education in exchange for teaching tap classes at the university,” Amber said.

They moved to Boulder in 1991, where Gene continued the second career that was the lasting professional joy of his life: Teaching dance to hundreds of students of all ages at studios along the Front Range. GeBauer’s second career just happened to last 42 years.

“When we first moved out to Colorado from Iowa, Gene pulled out the Yellow Pages and sent a cover letter and resume to every single dance studio,” said Judy. One of the first to respond was Mary Williams, who had a studio in Boulder called Dance Forms. He also taught at Little Theatre Culture Center and the Step In Style Dance Studio, both in Lakewood, among many others.

The young family had no money for babysitters, so Gene took Amber to work with him wherever the work was. “The story goes that one day, he lined up his dancers at the barre, and when he got to the end, there I was, too,” said Bryant.

She was 2.

Bryant got a lot of free lessons over the next decade while assisting her father. He also choreographed musicals at Northglenn High School, including one production of his beloved “Hello, Dolly!” featuring his daughter as Ernestina. Amber went on to work as a showgirl at MGM and Mandalay Bay in Vegas, which made her father endlessly proud.

More than anywhere else, GeBauer was a legendary figure at Destination Dance in Lakewood, where he was still teaching three days a week when the pandemic did the one thing nothing could since he was 11. It stopped him in his tracks.

“What Gene he missed most was the camaraderie,” his wife said. “He was actually very shy in a lot of ways, but he was fully himself on the dance floor.” He forged friendships that lasted all his life.”

GeBauer was inducted into the University of Denver’s “Living Legends of Dance in Colorado” in 2017. To Judy, his legacy is simple: “He just made a lot of people happy,” she said.

A life celebration is being planned for late June. Judy is envisioning an impromptu tap jam. In lieu of flowers, she encourages friends to make a donation in Gene’s name “to any organization that helps people who are struggling to keep food on the table for their children ”