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NEW YORK - Many men have razzle-dazzled us with smooth dance moves: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and John Travolta immediately spring to mind.
But John O'Hurley, now starring as the sexy shyster Billy Flynn in "Chicago," deserves special props for executing the fanciest footwork in recent history.
The 51-year-old actor has managed to fox-trot, tango and waltz his way from being a stooge to a stud.
That's no mean feat - especially when you've been pigeonholed as a completely different kind of showbiz being for a decade. Since 1995, O'Hurley has borne the mark of J. Peterman, the kooky catalog king he immortalized on "Seinfeld."
"Peterman was an elegant buffoon who was a legend in his own mind," O'Hurley says. "He acted like Mr. Magoo."
That said, when O'Hurley walked down a city street, "every other person would ask me about Peterman."
Things change. Thanks to the deft dips, elegant glides and the wry half-smile he displayed on ABC's hit reality competition "Dancing With the Stars," O'Hurley says that people are now keener on discussing his smooth ballroom moves than puffy Peterman's treks to Burma.
O'Hurley doesn't want to sweep Peterman under the carpet - he's a part owner of the real J. Peterman company, after all, and is working on a reality show that will involve that role. But he delights in the notion that his hoofing has swept people off their feet and allowed him to reinvent himself in the process.
"I was walking down Broadway to the bank" last week, he says. "Construction workers and policemen yelled out to me, `Great dancing!' It was funny because the cops were in the middle of arresting someone."
Others have taken note of his newfound skills. They include 40-year-old designer Kate Cole, who launched the blog ohurleygrrrl.blogster.com to celebrate (what else?) "everything John O'Hurley," whom she "love, love, love(s)."
Meanwhile, the pop-culture manual of modern masculinity, People magazine, is also clearly turned on by him.In November it featured O'Hurley in its celebrated list of the sexiest men alive. His special category: sexiest dancer.
That should be a memo to guys who are content having two left feet - there's nothing hotter than a man who can dance. Consider the agile Astaire, who wasn't a looker, as such. But when he danced, the frog became a prince.
O'Hurley can relate.
His "Dancing With the Stars" experience has made him feel "so much more sensual," he says. "It has opened so many areas for me."
The biggest is Broadway, where he's making his debut in the long-running Kander and Ebb revival about two murderous tootsies - Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart - and their oily lawyer, Billy Flynn.
O'Hurley says he would never have been "in like Flynn" without the reality TV gig.
"I wouldn't have been cast before I did `Dancing With the Stars,'" he says. "Absolutely not."
That's because the public and people in the business couldn't see past J. Peterman. It's a common phenomenon, according to casting director Bernie Telsey, who notes that being famous for a particular role is a double-edged sword.
"It's a blessing because it presents opportunities linked to that part," says Telsey, who has cast such shows as "Wicked," "Hairspray" and "Three Days of Rain." "But it's a curse, because people won't let you be seen in any other way. But of movies, TV and the theater, Broadway is the most willing to take a leap."
O'Hurley was ready to jump back to Manhattan - where he worked in soap operas and musical theater in the 1980s.
"Living in New York was part of my wedding vows," says O'Hurley, who married former Golf Channel exec Lisa Mesloh in 2004. "I told my wife that we'd live there for a period of time. She'd never gotten to experience it. I said, `I'll do something on Broadway.'"
He didn't wait for "Chicago" producers to ask. "I approached them," he says. "I said, `I'd love to come in and do it.' They said fine."
A macho-man move, perhaps, but he was buoyed by his slimmed-down physique (the rigors of reality TV whittled 25 pounds off his 6-foot-4 frame) and the beefed-up chutzpah that inevitably comes from being the fan favorite in a hit TV show that averaged some 17 million viewers a week.
"('Dancing With the Stars') was a big confidence builder," says O'Hurley, who toured in national productions of "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
"In the past, I could move on stage but I wasn't a dancer," he adds. "I would never do a grapevine across the stage, drop on my left leg, then do a spin. I wouldn't do that because I didn't know how. Now I do know how to do it. And I insist on doing it."
He's not kidding. Like other "Chicago" replacements - he is the 31st Billy Flynn in the Broadway production - O'Hurley worked with the choreographer to showcase his new talent.
But it wasn't about highlighting his sex appeal. O'Hurley says he doesn't "take myself that seriously. I'm confident. I think that's what makes a man sexy."
He acknowledges that confidence can't control everything, however. Some things come out of the blue.
"It's funny," he says. "When I agreed to do `Dancing With the Stars,' I said yes because dancing was something I should at least know how to do, but didn't.
"I thought: Shame on me for that. I went mostly for the educational aspect of it. I was flying blind and I didn't mind the idea of being the first person tossed out. But when I started doing it, I thought, Wait a minute, I'm not that bad. And now," he says, with a pause, "it has changed my life."
Razzle-dazzle, indeed.
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(c) 2006, New York Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
