In Fred's Steps: Jeffry Denman Idolized Astaire-Then One Clay He Heard about White Christmas

Beginning of article

Jeffry Denman has a framed airplane ticket, and it's not because he's an airline buff or because he got a celebrity to autograph it at the airport. It's because even though he was unemployed, broke, and in debt, he bought that cross-country ticket to get himself from New York to a Los Angeles audition. The audition won him the dance lead in Irving Berlin's White Christmas, which he's played across the country since 2004. And this holiday season, he's landing with it on Broadway, playing the role first created in the movies by his idol, Fred Astaire, and later by another master of movement, Danny Kaye.

For those not up on their pop music ancient history, "White Christmas," one of a handful of songs that most Americans can sing from beginning to end, was written by Irving Berlin and performed by Bing Crosby in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn. Crosby and Astaire played two thirds of a …