Dancing Backstage: The Stars Get a Surprise Guest

• May 13, 2008 02:06 PM ET
• by danceteam

As if the Season 6 semi-finals weren't reason enough to be in a party mood, Season 3 champ Emmitt Smith entered the ballroom just before show time and did the funky chicken all the way across the floor to his ringside seat. "I'm not sure if he was here to support me or Cheryl [Burke, his pro partner]," joked Jason Taylor, who reached out to Smith before signing on to do Dancing with the Stars."

"Emmitt gave me a lot of advice in the beginning and everything that he said came true," says Taylor. "He said, 'You're going to have fun with it. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of practice. It's a lot of media stuff. It's challenging, but you're going to be in great shape. And I think you're going to love it.'"

Taylor says his body has changed as a result of his 8-hour-a-day dance training schedule. He's more sleek, more ripped, and hoping that the new muscles will help him get to those slippery quarterbacks a little faster. Says his pro partner, Edyta Sliwinska, "Jason told me that if he weren't here, he'd be at home right now smoking cigars. So this is probably the best [pre-football] training he's had in a couple of seasons."

The final three couples are going to need all the stamina they can muster going into the finals. Next week, they'll be called upon to do three dances: an encore dance of their choosing, the game-changing freestyle, and a cha cha dance-off, with each couple performing to the same song so the audience can make their own comparisons.

"It's getting harder and harder because the songs are getting longer," says pro Mark Ballas, whose choreography for Kristi Yamaguchi has become remarkably challenging. "The songs have gone from one minute in the beginning to 1:10, then 1:15. And this week we were at 1:35. And with a dance like the jive, that's tough."

So tough, in fact, that Yamaguchi can point out the purple bruises on her left knee and left ankle, hidden under her bobby socks. "This is like hockey!" she jokes, referring to the battering that her pro hockey-playing husband, Bret Hedican, is used to getting on a regular basis.

For Cristián de la Fuente, the pain in his damaged left arm was made more bearable by the reaction of Monday night's crowd. You could feel the people in the ballroom pulling for him, willing him to overcome his injury. "I felt it and it made me very emotional," he says. "People were very supportive in the Viennese waltz. And then in the samba, I really felt it. And it's the best feeling, ever. That's what keeps you going."

For Marissa Jaret Winokur, doing the rumba on Monday night was a dream come true. "I felt like the rumba was the best dance I've ever done. I truly never felt better about us," she says, referring to pro partner Tony Dovolani. "Or about myself, or about the dress. I felt sexy and confident. There was no gimmick, no smiley Marissa. It was a real woman. And after I was done, my friend said, 'Let me take a picture of you right now so you can remember what this feels like.'"

Perhaps it's a memory she will need in July, when she's doing 3 a.m. feedings of the surrogate baby she's expecting. "Exactly!" she laughs. "I used to do the rumba! Let mommy show you a tape of me doing the rumba! Look how sexy I was!" Then Winokur shakes her head. "My poor kid." - Deborah Starr Seibel

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