Frankie ‘Musclehead’ Manning, one of the founding fathers of swing dancing, who helped launch a global phenomenon, died on 27 April, 2009, aged 94.

Manning was one of the pioneers of the Lindy Hop, an acrobatic dance first performed in America which went on to become popular across the world.

Based on the Charleston, the dance was said to have been named after the aviator Charles Lindbergh whose nickname was Lindy and who flew solo across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1927 – the year that it evolved.

As a leading dancer at the legendary Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York, Manning revolutionised the Lindy Hop, inventing new moves, including the air step, in which the dancer’s feet leave the floor.

He first performed this aerial move in 1935 in a contest at the Savoy Ballroom when, wanting to outdo another competitor, he persuaded his partner, Freda Washington, to flip over his back. This flip became known as the ‘over the back’ and quickly caught on in Lindy Hop.

Manning went on to become part of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, a professional performance group made up of top dancers from the Savoy. As a featured dancer and choreographer, he performed in numerous Hollywood films, including Hellzapoppin’ (1941). He also danced in front of King George VI.

The Lindy Hop is often described as a jazz dance, and he also entertained on stages around the world with jazz greats, such as Count Basie , Duke Ellington , Ella Fitzgerald , Ethel Waters and Cab Calloway.

He got his name ‘Musclehead’ from the chants of ‘Go, Musclehead, go!’ from other dancers as they watched his closely cropped head glisten with sweat while he spun himself and his partners around.

Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers were disbanded with the advent of the Second World War when many of the male dancers in the troupe were drafted. And, with the swing era over, Manning disappeared from public view, taking a job in the US post office for the next 30 years.

But in the mid-1980s he was rediscovered by a new generation of swing dance enthusiasts and became much in demand as a coach and choreographer. This led to him winning a 1989 Tony award for his choreography in the Broadway musical Black and Blue.

Remarkably, he was still dancing well into the last years of his life. In 1992, he performed in the film Malcolm X, about the black American activist. He also celebrated his 89th and 90th birthdays by dancing with one woman for each year of his life.