Our History

As America’s sec­ond old­est fran­chise orga­ni­za­tion, Arthur Mur­ray Inter­na­tional, Inc. is known around the world as a promi­nent enter­tain­ment com­pany with fran­chises located through­out the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Europe, the Middle-East, Japan, Africa and Australia.

With the begin­ning of a new mil­len­nium, social danc­ing is again a sig­nif­i­cant part of pop­u­lar cul­ture for all gen­er­a­tions. Today, the Arthur Mur­ray Fran­chised Dance Stu­dios con­tinue a tra­di­tion of more than 93 years in teach­ing the world to dance.

The his­tory of the Arthur Mur­ray Fran­chised Dance Stu­dios began in 1912 with a man named Arthur Mur­ray, an Amer­i­can sym­bol of entre­pre­neur­ial suc­cess and social danc­ing. Mur­ray was among the first to use adver­tis­ing tech­niques con­sid­ered cut­ting edge at the time. His con­cept of sell­ing dance lessons by mail, one step at a time, took the use of direct mail to a new level.

Murray’s cre­ative use of print adver­tis­ing attracted national atten­tion, as did his busi­ness acu­men. In March of 1920, using stu­dents from Geor­gia Tech, Mur­ray arranged to have music trans­mit­ted to a group of his dance stu­dents a few miles away. This was the world’s first radio broad­cast of live dance music for dancing.

Prior to World War II, Arthur Mur­ray teach­ers were a reg­u­lar part of every first-class steamship cruise and dur­ing the Thir­ties, the stu­dios intro­duced such dances to the pub­lic as the “Lam­beth Walk” and “The Big Apple.” The pop­u­lar­ity of “The Big Apple” launched Murray’s sin­gle stu­dio on a path towards becom­ing the largest chain of dance schools in North America.

In 1942, Betty Hut­ton and the Jimmy Dorsey Orches­tra recorded “Arthur Mur­ray Taught Me Danc­ing In A Hurry” for the movie “The Fleet’s In.” By 1946, there were 72 Arthur Mur­ray Dance Stu­dios across America.

Arthur Mur­ray was the first to real­ize the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of the Latin dances in Amer­ica dur­ing the 1950’s. Many con­ven­tions were held in Cuba dur­ing that time to give Arthur Mur­ray dance train­ers first-hand knowl­edge of the hot new Latin styles and moves that were loom­ing on the hori­zon of popularity.

In July 1950, Mr. Mur­ray pur­chased five fif­teen minute tele­vi­sion spots on CBS. Before the third show, Arthur bought a half-hour sum­mer series on ABC. The show was called the “Arthur Mur­ray Dance Party.” By May 1952, the Mur­rays had tele­vised almost 100 pro­grams. Their TV rat­ings climbed, and in the sum­mer of 1952 they signed with their first spon­sor, Gen­eral Foods. Mil­lions of view­ers all over North Amer­ica fell in love with the show and flocked to the Arthur Mur­ray Stu­dios through­out the coun­try. The show ran for twelve years on national television.

When Arthur and Kathryn Mur­ray retired in 1964, a group of fran­chisees pur­chased the com­pany and brought a fresh new spirit and lead­er­ship to it. Under its new lead­er­ship, the Arthur Mur­ray Fran­chised Dance Stu­dios has kept pace with the rapidly chang­ing “youth cul­ture,” and con­tinue to flour­ish as the world’s largest dance instruc­tion organization.

Arthur Mur­ray dance teach­ers can be found on movie sets in Hol­ly­wood, back­stage on Broad­way, and in your local stu­dio. When­ever a movie involves dance, it’s good bet that Arthur Mur­ray has been involved in some way, shape or form. Dirty Danc­ing, True Lies, Sat­ur­day Night Fever, and Scent of a Woman all fea­ture Arthur Mur­ray instruc­tors, whether train­ing the actors or danc­ing on screen.

Arthur Mur­ray International’s com­mit­ment to dance goes even fur­ther, with senior man­age­ment heav­ily involved in the world of pro­fes­sional and ama­teur com­pet­i­tive dance. Many of Arthur Murray’s offi­cial have con­tributed to bring­ing com­pet­i­tive ball­room danc­ing to the fore­front as an Olympic Sport.

All Arthur Mur­ray fran­chised Dance Stu­dios are inde­pen­dently owned and oper­ated by indi­vid­u­als who started as dance instruc­tors and worked their way up to the exec­u­tive level. By the time they are qual­i­fied to pur­chase a fran­chise, they have expe­ri­enced every phase of stu­dio oper­a­tions, from teach­ing and super­vis­ing to mar­ket­ing and managing.

Build­ing from within has kept the stu­dio sys­tem strong. Our fran­chisees are com­mit­ted to the Spirit of Excel­lence. Cur­rently, there are approx­i­mately 250 Arthur Mur­ray Fran­chised Dance Stu­dios worldwide.

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