Meet Village Veranda's Dancing Queen

Published: September 1, 2022

Lyn Trudeau has danced since she was around five years old. She remembers hanging bed sheets on the clothesline in the backyard as the backdrop for performances with her sister at their home in the Chicago suburbs.

Now 80 years old and living at the Village Veranda at Lady Lake in Florida, she'll say her dancing days are behind her. Throw on “Barbara Ann” by The Beach Boys or “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley, though, and the rhythm immediately flows through her.

She'll twist her hips, shimmy her shoulders, clap to the beat and maybe even grab an unsuspecting resident of her retirement facility to twirl her around.

She might even break out a move or two from her show days opening for some of the most popular singers of the 1960s, from the Rat Pack to Mel Tormé.

“When the music is on, I just move,” Trudeau said after demonstrating a kick line and pretending to fluff her dress skirt up behind her.

She studied dance growing up and was the first in her family to forgo school for a different passion.

“I just loved to dance and perform, and it was fun, practicing all the time, tapping around the house and ruining the floors,” she said. “My parents had gone to college, and my sister had been, and here’s Lyn off dancing.”

Trudeau studied jazz, tap, and ballet and took classes with Rudy Noel, a well-known choreographer in Chicago. When he was asked to provide dancers to open and close shows, he selected Trudeau as one of six to become the Rudy Noel Dancers.

She danced with the group for three to four years in her early 20s in the 1960s opening for famous singers that came through Chicago.

The biggest was the Rat Pack, consisting of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. She also opened for big names like Mel Tormé, Vic Damone, Anita Bryant and Eydie Gormé.

Trudeau remembers Sinatra and Martin keeping mostly to themselves, but her eyes light up when she reminisces about Davis.

“He was a great guy, and he was the only one that was personable,” she said. “Sammy Davis was really friendly and talked with us and sat with us and carried on. He was just so friendly and full of fun and liked to goof off with the ladies.”

Not to mention he had a great voice, she says.

Trudeau left show business a few years later when she got married but still considers dance a defining part of her life, whether as a young girl in the backyard, a professional on the big stage or the life of the dance floor in the activity room of Village Veranda at Lady Lake.

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