Hoofers Picketed Music Hall Over Exclusion : Rockettes Gotta Dance; Disney Says OK

Walt Disney Productions has changed its mind and will allow the high-kicking Rockettes to appear in its summer show at Radio City Music Hall, the hall announced today.

Disney, which is renting Radio City for 10 weeks beginning June 21, had rejected the use of the Rockettes as “inappropriate” in a show featuring Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse.

It was a major victory for the precision dancers, who had been picketing the hall daily since Radio City announced last month that the Rockettes would be missing from the summer show for the first time in 54 years.

“Where’s the champagne?” shouted Eileen Collins, a Rockette for 13 years, when she learned the good news.

“This has been three weeks of hell for me and all the girls,” she said, bursting into tears. “I’m crying with happiness.”

The company resisted weeks of public appeals from celebrities and New York politicians. It did not disclose why it had reversed its position.

Radio City also announced today that while the 36 regular Rockettes are dancing here, a second troupe of 18 new Rockettes will appear at Disney World near Orlando, Fla.

The announcements came a day after New York Lt. Gov. Alfred DelBello telephoned David Rockefeller to plead the Rockettes’ cause. Radio City Music Hall is owned by the Rockefeller Group.

Earlier this week, the Rockettes flew to Albany, where state Sen. Leonard Stavisky presented a resolution to the Legislature praising the chorines and urging Radio City and Disney to include them in the show.