Kaye bernardo biography of christopher walken

A Dancer’s Life: Meet Sal Angelica, Part I

Having enjoyed an illustrious and long career in musical theatre, dancer Sal Angelica’s list of credits are lessons in performing arts history.  His story began at a time and place of artistic fervor in America, and in particular in New York City.

Sal, you’re currently living in Las Vegas where you have worked many shows, but you began life on the east coast.

I was born March 22, , at Kings County hospital in Brooklyn, New York. My family first lived on the lower east side of Manhattan. I grew up at 42 Eldridge Street. We were in the heart of a very Jewish area, which was also just walking distance from Chinatown at Canal Street and Little Italy&#;s Mott and Mulberry Streets (lots of Italian feasts!). I recall hearing Connie Francis singing on a tenement building fire escape. There were also lots of Polish people living in the area &#; a real melting pot.

My mother, Jennie, was a single working parent. She and my Aunt Sadie both worked in the Garment District making belts for dresses.  Grandpa owned and ran a tailor shop on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn where my mother and aunt learned how to use a sewing machine.  My Aunt Sadie could sew anything from chiffon to burlap and even made hats. My mother, aunt, and cousin, Jenny (same first name as my mother&#;s), always had the latest styles for themselves through my grandfather’s shop. The three were knock outs.  They’d get dressed up on weekends to go out dancing. Watching them getting ready was the closest I had ever been to the dance world!  At least up until that time.

At twelve years of age, I wanted a gold cross. Knowing the only way that I could get one was to work and make enough money to pay for it myself. I swept and mopped five flights of tenement stairs and halls.

Louie Henri (older)

Pancho Villa (older, as himself)