Cat Glover, dancer and choreographer who worked with Prince on the film Sign o’ the Times

‘I say that I never regret anything, but I could write a book about regrets,’ she said. ‘My biggest regret is that I left Prince’

Cat Glover, who has died aged 62, was a dancer and choreographer who was by Prince’s side during one of his most creative periods, the era of his Sign o’ the Times film and tour, as well as his album Alphabet St and “Lovesexy” tour.
“I first heard about Prince after his [1980] album, Dirty Mind,” she recalled. “I was living on my own on the North Side of Chicago. The only thing that got me through my depression from everything was listening to Dirty Mind. I knew I had to meet him.”
Her campaign began in 1986 on the TV talent show Star Search, as part of the dance duo Pat and Cat (with her friend Patrick Allen), which featured her signature move, the “Scat Cat”, dressed in a friend’s lion costume. Though they were the first act to receive a perfect score from the judges – a feat they repeated in later rounds – they were beaten in the final and missed out on $100,000 prize money.
They did, however, attract the attention of David Bowie – and, as Cat Glover had intended, Prince.
She was invited to his house in Beverly Hills for dinner, and when the assembled company repaired to a club, Prince asked her: “When a good song comes on will you dance with me?” Three tracks later, Simply Irresistible by Robert Palmer came on, and they began dancing. “He started doing dance steps and I started doing them – whatever he did, I did,” she recalled. “That was the night it all started.”
She joined his band in December 1986 – the following day she had to turn down Bowie’s invitation to join his Glass Spider tour – and she went on to choreograph and appear in his film Sign o’ the Times the following year and the “Lovesexy” tour in 1988, as well as the videos for U Got the Look and I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man.
She also provided the rap on his single Alphabet St: “Talk to me lover/ Come on tell me what you taste/ Didn’t your mama tell you/ Life is too good to waste?”
A year into her stint with Prince, she recalled, she was at a party at his Paisley Park complex. “I was with Bowie and Prince, standing against a wall. Prince said: ‘Yeah, that’s my girl.’ Bowie said: ‘No, that’s my girl.’ Prince said: ‘Well, I had her first,’ and Bowie said: ‘No, she was supposed to be with me first!’ It was an awesome feeling.”
But in 1989 she departed, because, she recalled, “I was asked to do something I didn’t agree with… He fired someone – but he actually wanted me to fire that person, so I left.” She left to forge a solo career, though her rap on the song Cindy C subsequently appeared on the The Black Album in 1994.
Catherine Vernice Glover was born in Chicago on July 24 1962 (other dates have been cited but she confirmed this date herself in an interview), one of six children. She began dancing aged five, and by the time she appeared on Star Search she was working in a Beverly Hills shop named The Beautiful Web by day and dancing at venues like The Palace (now known as Avalon Hollywood) by night.
After leaving Prince she moved to London and recorded an EP, Catwoman. She continued to move between there and Los Angeles, working as a choreographer and recording with the likes of Tim Simenon, the musician and producer trading under the name Bomb the Bass. But her career was defined by her stint with the Purple One.
“I say that I never regret anything, but I could write a book about regrets,” she later said. “My biggest regret is that I left Prince.”
Cat Glover’s survivors include three daughters and a son.
Cat Glover, born July 24 1962, died September 24 2024