Marie Stinnett says it’s time to bow out of her career as a dance instructor.

The 81 year-old said the time is right to retire. She has run the Marie Stinnett Dance studio in the Campbell Community Center for 58 years, but plans to close July 31 once her intermediate adult jazz classes wrap up.

“I plan in my retirement to go watch all the kids that I’ve taught proceed in their work and watch it improve,” Stinnett said.

Stinnett opened her first dance studio in the city on Sept. 6, 1958, at 397 E. Campbell Ave., where Brown Chicken, Brown Cow is now located.

“I registered 17 kids on that day,” Stinnett said. “By 90 days later I had 44, and in June of 1959 I had 88. I didn’t keep track past that.”

Before opening her studio in Campbell, the El Monte native took dance lessons at age 6 at a studio just four blocks from her home. She credits her father for introducing her to her life’s work.

“My father took me to a dance teacher. He said, ‘I think my daughter has some talent. She responds to music and is very flexible,’” Stinnett said.

While attending classes at Mount San Antonio College a “once in a lifetime opportunity” followed her home on Thanksgiving Day.

During halftime of a school football game, she left to change out of her majorette costume to head home to help her mother with Thanksgiving dinner. A man approached her outside of the women’s restroom and asked her to take his card. He invited her to an audition at Paramount Studios.

Reluctant, Stinnett told the man if the information about the audition were true, he would have to tell her mother because Stinnett certainly didn’t believe him.

“I said if that’s the truth then follow me home and tell my mother that,” Stinnett said. “He said he would, and he did. He followed me home.”

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Stinnett went to the audition after her mother told her to take a chance. She succeeded and at age 19 got her first professional job as a dancer. She was one of 36 women who were in “You’re Never Too Young,” a comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. She can be seen marching on a tennis court with Lewis in the movie.

“Oh my goodness, I taught Jerry how to twirl a baton,” Stinnett said, adding that from that point on, she worked on a variety of movies with stars like Frank Sinatra, Mitzi Gaynor, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. She even appeared regularly on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.”

While working with highly regarded actors may have made some people starstruck, Stinnett said all of them were very nice and nothing like their on-screen personas.

“They would sit and talk to me while I was knitting,” Stinnett said. “I loved the experiences that I had. I could go one for days with stories.”

After following her first husband up to the Bay Area, Stinnett decided she wanted to open her own dance studio after choreographing high school plays and teaching dance in Carmel.

The San Jose resident has stayed in the area, teaching and coaching students, ever since. She said plenty of her students have moved on to big things like opening their own studios or dancing on Broadway. Stinnett said she even gave lessons in showmanship to Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano.

“I worked with him for four years on upper body movements. ‘You know how good you are. You have to tell the audience how good you are with your face,'” she recalls telling him. “He got the gold at Calgary that year in 1988, and then his career went on from there.”

While Stinnett’s studio is not focused on competition, she says all her students are her “trophies.” She said she has taught generations of students at her studio, and her daughter and granddaughter have taught there as well.

“Kids keep me young,” Stinnett said. “I’m retiring from the business, but I don’t picture myself ever retiring from helping kids or dancing.”

On June 20 the Campbell City Council recognized Stinnett for her years of work. According to the city, she was the first tenant of the Campbell Community Center when the city took over the former Campbell High School site.