Cat Glover, who worked with the iconic musician Prince for several years as his main dancer and choreographer, seemed to drawn to entertainment from a young age.
When she was 6 and supposed to sing a traditional Easter song before her family’s church congregation on the West Side, Ms. Glover instead began snapping her fingers, swinging her hips and singing a different tune of her choosing: the folk song “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley.”
“People were falling out of their chairs laughing,” said Ms. Glover’s cousin, Chicago media personality Chinta Strausberg.
“She’s missed. She was our star,” Strausberg said. “She outdanced everybody at family reunions.”
Ms. Glover, 62, was pronounced dead Tuesday after she was found unresponsive in her apartment in Los Angeles, said Strausberg. Family is waiting to hear what caused her death.
Ms. Glover grew up on the West Side before moving to Morgan Park, where she attended Esmond Elementary and Morgan Park High School.
Prince’s music helped her through hard times while she was living on her own as a teenager on the North Side, Ms. Glover told her cousin in an account that was published in The Chicago Crusader after Prince’s death in 2016.
“The only thing that got me through my depression from everything was listening to Prince’s album ‘Dirty Mind.’ I knew I had to meet him,” she said.
Ms. Glover was 18 and working as a dancer at Dingbats, a club on the Near North Side where Mr. T worked as a bouncer, when she first encountered Prince.
The musician was staying at a hotel across the street from the club. She walked over to try to meet him.
“I remember standing at the elevator pushing a button. I was trying to get up there to meet Prince. The door opened and he was there,” she said in a 2013 interview with The Beautiful Nights Blog. “I remember that he just stared at me. He looked at me from head to toe. I thought, ‘Wow.’ But, I still didn’t get to meet him.”
She was in Los Angeles working as a salesperson during the day and a dancer at night when she got the career boost she needed.
She appeared with a friend, Patrick Allen, as a dancing duet on the television talent show “Star Search” in 1986. It’s where the world got to see one of her signature moves: the cat scat.
The pair made it to the finals but lost.
Ms. Glover’s friend Devin DeVasquez, a model who worked on “Star Search” and was dating Prince at the time, invited her over to Prince’s house in Beverly Hills for a dinner that segued into a night of dancing at clubs.
Prince asked her to dance when Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” came on.
She recalled in her blog interview: “I was wearing cowboy boots and a pair of Levi’s jeans. He reached to hold my hands while we were dancing, but I had leather gloves on, so I couldn’t feel anything. He started doing dance steps and I started doing them; whatever he did, I did. I think he noticed that. … That’s the night it all started.”
She soon received offers from Prince and David Bowie to work with them. She chose Prince.
She appeared with Prince on his 1987 “Sign o’ the Times” tour and the concert film that followed, and choreographed his 1988 “Lovesexy” tour, where she sang as a backup and rapped on the song “Alphabet St.”
After a disagreement with Prince, she left the band in 1989.
Ms. Glover released her debut solo album entitled “Catwoman” that same year and continued to work as a choreographer and dancer.
Catherine Vernice Glover was born in Chicago July 24, 1962, to Mildred and Doneall Glover Sr.
She was a homemaker and he was a railroad company foreman.
Ms. Glover was writing her memoir at the time of her death.
She remained in touch with Prince for years after she left his band and always remained very protective of his legacy.
She is survived by her five children.
Services, which will take place in Los Angeles, are pending.