{"id":210,"date":"2026-08-24T14:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dance-forums.com\/blog\/?p=210"},"modified":"2026-08-24T14:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:48:16","slug":"ron-montez-elizabeth-curtis-latin-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dance-forums.com\/blog\/ron-montez-elizabeth-curtis-latin-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Montez and Elizabeth Curtis: America\u2019s Seven-Time Latin Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

How one partnership shaped American Latin dancing\u2014in competition, teaching, television, and the institutions behind the floor<\/em><\/p>\n

For seven consecutive years, the names at the top of the United States Professional Latin championship record did not change.<\/p>\n

From 1979 through 1985, Ronald Montez and Elizabeth Curtis won the national title every year: seven years, seven victories, one partnership.<\/p>\n

That statistic is the simplest way to explain why they matter. It is not the whole explanation.<\/p>\n

Montez and Curtis belonged to a generation that helped establish what elite American Latin dancing could look like on an international floor. Their seven-title run followed the innovative championship career of Vernon Brock, Beverly Donahue and Linda Dean<\/a>, linking two important chapters in the rise of American Latin dancing.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Montez and Curtis taught other competitors, performed for television audiences, appeared in touring shows, and carried their knowledge into the everyday language of American ballroom instruction. Their influence survives not only in title lists, but in the memories and technical conversations dancers still share decades later\u2014including Dance Forums members still returning to Montez\u2019s solution to a technical question in American rumba<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Typographic
Seven consecutive U.S. Professional Latin championships: 1979\u20131985.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a glance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Partnership<\/strong><\/td>\nRon Montez and Elizabeth Curtis<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
National record<\/strong><\/td>\nU.S. Professional Latin champions, 1979\u20131985<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Competitive reach<\/strong><\/td>\nWorld and British Open Professional Latin finalists<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Known for<\/strong><\/td>\nRhythmic, highly physical Latin dancing; coaching; show work<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Beyond competition<\/strong><\/td>\nTelevision, instructional media, professional organization, film and stage work<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Ron Montez: from a six-week course to a life in dance<\/h2>\n

Late in life, Montez told the story of his beginning without trying to turn it into a legend.<\/p>\n

He had grown up in a small town, loved sports and the outdoors, and was not yet ready for college. His older sister Bettina and her husband were teaching for Arthur Murray. They suggested that he try a six-week training course for new teachers at the company\u2019s Tucson studio. He joined, learned alongside his first students, and, as he recalled in a 2020 Ballroom Chat interview<\/a>, never looked back.<\/p>\n

The competitive spark arrived when Australian dancers Barry and Cheryl Wrightson visited the Tucson studio. Montez had not seen a couple present coordinated costumes, planned music, choreography and athletic performance in that way. Their advice was direct: find a partner, find serious training, and enter a competition.<\/p>\n

He moved to California to study. His first competitive style was Standard, and for a period he danced both Ballroom and Latin as a ten-dancer. Teaching continued throughout. As Montez explained in the same interview, competition purses did not pay for the training, travel and costumes required to compete; teaching kept a professional career possible.<\/p>\n

That matters because it makes the later Montez easier to understand. The champion, coach and syllabus demonstrator were not separate careers. He was teaching before the titles, while winning them, and long after he had left the competitive floor.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Curtis: the partner who defined the direction<\/h2>\n

The surviving online record tells us much less about Curtis\u2019s early life than it does about Montez\u2019s. A responsible profile should say that plainly rather than fill the silence with guesswork.<\/p>\n

What can be documented is significant. Curtis was part of the advanced performance group in the University of Southern California ballroom program during the program\u2019s formative 1970s years. USC\u2019s historical archive also records that she won a U.S. Amateur championship with Michael Rennie before her professional partnership with Montez.<\/p>\n

Curtis\u2019s Latin specialization changed the direction of the new partnership. Montez had been competing across styles; as he later recalled, Curtis did Latin, so Latin became their shared focus. That decision produced one of the most durable championship runs in American ballroom history.<\/p>\n

The record also shows that Curtis was never simply the unnamed half of someone else\u2019s achievement. In a 1986 Los Angeles Times report<\/a>, she was identified as a mentor to many San Diego-area competitors and spoke in detail about their emerging students. The article credited Montez and Curtis together as catalysts for a sharp rise in the area\u2019s dance level.<\/p>\n

Later, dancer and teacher Enio Cordoba recalled Curtis as his former coach\u2014and as the person who invited him to help with a film project then called Shut Up and Dance<\/em>. The film became Dance with Me<\/em> (1998). Cordoba\u2019s first-person account<\/a> describes six months spent training its director and cast before filming. It is a small but revealing example of how ballroom knowledge passed from champions into a much wider popular culture.<\/p>\n

Seven years at the top<\/h2>\n
\"Timeline
The NDCA records Montez and Curtis as U.S. Professional Latin champions in every year from 1979 through 1985.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The formal championship record<\/a> places Montez and Curtis at the top in every year from 1979 through 1985. The run began after Vernon Brock and Linda Dean had held the championship for four years, and ended before Corky and Shirley Ballas began their own five-year run.<\/p>\n

That context makes the achievement clearer. A national title is not a single performance preserved in isolation; it must be defended as rivals change, fashions move, and the partnership itself evolves. Montez and Curtis remained the recognized U.S. champions across a seven-year span.<\/p>\n

Their reach went beyond the national event. Dance Beat\u2019s retrospective on Montez describes the pair as finalists at the World Professional Latin Championship and the British Open at Blackpool. Those results placed an American couple among the leading international partnerships of an era still strongly centered in Britain and Europe.<\/p>\n

By 1986, the pair were appearing in what contemporary television listings called a farewell exhibition. A Los Angeles Times report from that spring still found them active as teachers and performers in San Diego, preparing material with Peter Maxwell\u2019s Ballroom Dance Theater for a four-week engagement in Japan. The championship partnership was ending, but its work was not simply stopping.<\/p>\n

Watch Montez and Curtis dance<\/h2>\n

The 1986 Ohio Star Ball preserved the partnership\u2019s farewell performance. It is especially useful historical footage because it shows Montez and Curtis as a complete performing couple\u2014not merely as names on a results page.<\/p>\n