Dancing With the Stars: A Pair of Unlikely Frontrunners
Cheryl Burke and Will Levy
It doesn't seem to matter that the Season 14 cast of Dancing With the Stars is filled with celebs we've known and loved for decades: Gladys Knight, Melissa Gilbert, Jaleel White, Martina Navratilova and Jack Wagner, who was given his walking papers Tuesday night. The fact is that two relative unknowns — classical singer Katherine Jenkins and Latin actor William Levy — are obliterating everyone else in the ballroom with the both the quality of their dancing and sheer animal magnetism: You'd be hard-pressed to find two better looking people on the planet.
Judge Bruno Tonioli looked thunderstruck after watching Levy do the salsa with pro Cheryl Burke on Monday night. "Of course he was," joked pro Tony Dovolani. "He was like every other girl in the building."
"I was here the first night and I saw him dance," says Season 13 contestant Chaz Bono. "I had no idea who he was. But the audience was screaming so loud it hurt my ears."
Levy himself still looks surprised by the reaction, even though the drumbeat surrounding him has been getting louder since he shot a Jennifer Lopez video in 2011, "I'm Into You." Did J. Lo help him release his inner dancer? "No," says Levy. "This is a lot different because I didn't have to dance with J. Lo, she just danced around me. I told Cheryl, 'You're making me dance too much! I'm not supposed to do the same thing you're doing. You dance around and make me look good. That's what J. Lo did.' And she said, 'Not here!'"
Then there's Jenkins, who makes a living standing still in front of a microphone, singing arias. Tell her pro, Mark Ballas, that she looks like she's been dancing all her life, and he is quick to set the record straight. "The first days we worked on the jive [in Week 2], the speed of it was an issue. I had to slow the track down. And when I finished showing her how to do it, she almost had a meltdown. She got really overwhelmed. And I was panicking a little."
Says Jenkins, "He said, 'You signed up for this. You've got to bring it.' It was a huge thing for me to overcome." Now Jenkins and Levy sit atop the leader board, blinding everyone with their star power.
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