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How Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly inspired the script for High School Musical 2

One scene from High School Musical 2 was taken from a real-life anecdote involving Frank Sinatra

News by Joshua Lapin-Bertone, Contributing writer

Published on Mon Feb 24 2025

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Sometimes real life can seem stranger than fiction.

There’s a scene in the 2007 movie High School Musical 2 where Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel) tries to get Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu) to perform in the country club talent show. Chad proclaims that he can’t dance, so Ryan uses baseball to train him to be a dancer. This all happens during a musical number called ‘I Don’t Dance.’

Seems pretty silly right? First of all, the song slaps, and second, it turns out this was all based on a true story, involving none other than Frank Sinatra.

Speaking to a crowd at Fan Expo Chicago, Corbin Bleu revealed the interesting story behind the musical number. “I loved the origin of ‘I Don’t Dance.’ It’s such a great Kenny nugget,” Bleu said, referring to High School Musical director and choreographer Kenny Ortega.

“He explained to us where this number came from, and it was because Frank Sinatra was starting in his rise to fame, and his agents ended up calling Gene Kelly, and saying, ‘Hey, there’s this new guy. Everyone loves him, he’s got this incredible voice, but he’s got two left feet. We would love it if you could maybe teach him some moves and get him to be a little more comfortable on stage.’ And Gene Kelly said, ‘Sure, does he play any sports?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, he loves baseball.’ So, Gene Kelly actually took him to a baseball field, and through the motion of baseball, and through the motions that he’s comfortable with, taught Frank Sinatra how to dance.”

It worked for Frank Sinatra, and so naturally it worked for Chad Danforth.

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Joshua Lapin-Bertone: Joshua is a pop culture writer specializing in comic book media. His work has appeared on the official DC Comics website, the DC Universe subscription service, HBO Max promotional videos, the Batman Universe fansite, and more. In between traveling around the country to cover various comic conventions, Joshua resides in Florida where he binges superhero television and reads obscure comics from yesteryear.