I love of dancing.

I just leads you places.

The blessed ones are the ones that are able to do work.

They love to make a living and I love to dance.

I love to teach dance.

The thing about dancing is, most people don't like to dance when they don't know how.

The people that love to dance.

Those are the ones that know how.

To dance?

I not.

When you're on the dance floor, you're in another world.

It's a time that you can leave your cares behind.

Because you are transported in a world of music.

It's an experience that is very different from any other creative.

Event that I've participated in.

His studio sits on a secluded street of a major Oklahoma City thoroughfare.

Nick Felix comes here every day to teach people how to dance.

It's his art, his gift, that can transport, transform and create almost like magic.

Dancing is an art.

And people, I think, begin to appreciate it when they see.

This creation coming out that they didn't know that they can portray.

The dance is life here.

It is embodied in this son of Italian immigrants who literally stumbled onto the dance floor.

I was dancing while I was in the military because I was looking for a part time job, and I had, my son was born and I was 20, I think, and I said, well, I need another job.

So when I went to get it, get a job, I told him I was a dancer.

I mean, I lied through my teeth.

I didn't know the difference.

And then they said, well, let's see a dance.

Well, the made an idiot of myself and he said, well, no, you have to learn how to do ballroom dancing.

Everybody get a partner.

Foxtrot.

So that was so much fun that when the Air Force wanted me to re-enlist, that's a man like, stay with this dancing.

In olden days, a glimpse of stalking worked on something shocking.

I'll never know.

So, I took part time job as an Arthur Murray dance teacher, and then Fred Astaire comes along, and they kind of stole me from Arthur Murray.

And I worked for Fred Astaire and became president of the whole Fred Astaire organization.

That means I are somebody.

I ran the whole company, and at one time I ran 20 Fred Astaire Dance Studios.

I was in charge totally of their dance standard, the teachers supervisor.

So I loved it.

But along this way, this president of the dance would fall in love with another artistic muse.

Writing for Hollywood.

We got a call.

They were shooting a movie in Brackett Ville, Texas, in San Antonio, and I was in San Antonio at the time.

So.

Called out there with three couples to dance.

So when I did get out there, it was not part of the movie.

It was a big TV show that they were wrapping and they were showing it on the air live.

So when I got there, they said, where's the dancers?

I said, here we are said, are you three couples?

Get over here now.

Richard Widmark is going to come in here and John Wayne is going to walk in here.

And, Frankie Avalon is going to be over there.

And they're planning all this out to me because I'm the one that said, here we are.

So here I am, brand new dance teacher, and I'm with dance choreographer.

So I loved it so much.

I just stayed with the motion picture business.

I went to, to, the Emmy Awards in LA, and I met a lot of movie stars early in life.

Dean Martin is a second cousin.

His mother, and my mother were first cousins.

So I met Dean Martin in Vegas and got to know Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, just hello.

I mean, not got to know him, but.

Hello.

How are you?

And Dean and I spent a little bit of time together, so that helped me meet other movie stars.

So that's how I got into meeting stars and being with them and so on.

And then I realized I could write.

The show business bug bit hard, and Nick decided to leave his first love.

I bought my own movie studio, went bankrupt because I finance Never Use Your Money.

I helped finance that picture that, Walt Disney subsidiary was doing that went broke.

Name of the movie is Where's Willie?

And I paid all the payroll.

The crew, the equipment went broke, closed down, and then I bought another movie.

Lost that one.

Or so I'm back in the dance business to make a living.

Undaunted, Felix found a way to keep his foot in the showbusiness door.

He would combine his love for dance with his love for show business, and he would learn much about artistic frustration.

I wrote a Broadway musical and and I'm talking about from beginning to end, and I thought this was going to be big time because it's all about ballroom dancing.

Ballroom dancing had not hit the scene yet.

After God Don't Need Nothing From Nobody.

And I knew that the play was a hit, but couldn't get it done.

I have in my office right now a dancing With the stars movie finished, but it's not quite like Dancing With the stars.

It's champions of dancing.

And I shot this with three cameras in Las Vegas with the greatest dancers in the world.

And if you were to look at that, you'd say, oh my goodness, this guy was, you know, really thinking about dancing with the stars.

I never occurred to me.

I was just trying to do a dance show.

Oh, yes, I can, I fancy.

How are you?

Good.

Grace.

Nick here today.

He's here to sum up Nick.

In a few words, I would have to say he's, teacher, choreographer.

A man of vision, a man of ideas.

He's always totally thinking of some idea.

It may not always have to do with ballroom dancing.

Often it has time.

It has to do with movies or plays or a song or even, food.

I mean, we ready to work here, and I hope we can get that stuff today.

Where I got machines running.

Oh.

That's great.

Let's go.

And then some of the best results comes from from your friend.

Patty Hutchins has been Nick's student longer than anyone else, taking lessons at his Oklahoma City studio.

Since I've been associated with Nick, we have, he had he has produced, several other dance tapes in addition to children's tapes.

I've learned a lot about producing videos and, working with children and, the work that goes behind producing a dance video.

I didn't know flowers could talk.

Where am I?

You're in the magic forest, and that's where I can talk.

But throughout all his creative exertions, Felix is first and foremost a dancer.

Yeah.

I was a singer.

Playing in the movie.

Okay, yeah.

I never had no problem.

I taught everybody make tapes that have taught tens of thousands of people.

I personally have taught Robert Duvall, Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon, Rosemary Clooney.

The list is on and on and on.

Nick is a teacher at heart.

It just comes easy for him.

I enjoy the music, the rhythm.

A lot of people come for exercise.

That's not my main purpose.

My main purpose is the creative expression it affords me.

Everybody has a desire to show what they can do or show what they know.

Everybody has a desire to to be recognized or acknowledged for any achievement, you know, some little teeny achievement or whatever.

But we're we're afraid.

We're afraid of looking like an idiot.

We're afraid of not saying it right.

You're afraid of maybe being mimicked or laugh.

That's what I like about dancing.

I have seen people grow.

They are talking about adults grow on the dance floor.

And it's a change in personalities that's.

I've seen them grow from introverts to extroverts.

So inhibited, almost obnoxious.

I'm seeing people just trying to change because of the confidence that seeks out.

I never thought I would do this forever.

You can't get away from it.

I mean, what if I hear a piece of music?

I want to dance to it?

If I see someone not doing it quite right, I want to help them out.

So.

12345678 with one two.

Today, Dance Magic has 12 instructors who break down ballroom art into manageable first steps for hundreds of Oklahomans.

Felix oversees all and don't believe him when he says he doesn't have anything else to do.

Nick knows what dance has done for him.

I think dance has given me more than any other and any other possible, career could.

But he still has dreams to chase.

Felix still pursues his elusive second love shopping his theater scripts and screenplays to those in Oklahoma's entertainment industry.

The main thing is, I'm happy doing what I'm doing.

I went to gray.

Mark talked to Greg Frederickson and John Simonelli, and they liked several script, screenplays.

But they have a plate full already.

They've done a whole bunch of movies that, they're busy with.

So one way or another, I'll get it down.

Nick Felix is that rare breed of artist who succeeds and struggles simultaneously.

You can't stop imagining things.

You can't stop storytelling.

Maybe I don't put as much to to papers.

I should, but I'm always thinking of what would make a good story, or a good title, or a good song, or even an incident in a play.

So I don't think I'll ever give that up.

Felix vows to retire next year, but no one really believes him.

They know that for this ballroom artist, the beat always goes on.

I think I just want to do everything as much as I can, whether I'm financially capable or even physically or talent wise.

I still want to do it.

So let's just say I'm having the time of my life because I'm getting up there and I am still kicking butt.

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