Watch Jimmy Valentine, a Legendary One-legged Lindy Hopper, Throwing Down with Sylvia Sykes

Jimmy Valentine with an unknown dancer.

This video posted by Tony Azar has been making the rounds of incredible lindy hopper and member of Whitey’s dance troupe Jimmy Valentine. Check him out, dancing with the incomparable Sylvia Sykes, in a brief clip that Sylvia recollects as possibly being from Las Vegas in 1992.

According to Peter Loggin’s excellent essay on Jimmy, Mr. Valentine lost his leg as a youngster while playing near the trolley tracks in Brooklyn. But that didn’t stop him from pursuing his interest in dance.

Jimmy began lindy hopping in Manhattan as a young man and eventually found his way to the Savoy. He was selected to perform with Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers on several occasions, and even toured with them in the South, until it became too risky for a white man to be seen dancing with his Black partner Edith.

He even qualified to compete in the Harvest Moon Ball competition, beating formidable dance teams of Frank Manning and Ann Johnson and George Gren and Norma Miller! But for unknown reasons Jimmy did not show up for the finals, perhaps because he and his partner were a “mixed” couple.

He later moved to LA where he got in with the local lindy scene. He reportedly even performed with another one-legged dance legend Peg Leg Bates on the Ed Sullivan Show! (Someone needs to find that video clip.)

Such an inspiring story! Remember: lindy hop is for everybody. Every body.