-
Maryen Lorrain Miller
Maryen Lorrain Miller was born, and with the passion for dance. As Abby has said many times: "The woman who started it all" -
Period: to
the millers
-
Maryen's Childhood
Maryen spent her early years in Pittsburg learning the art of dance and studying under Martha Davies. Eventually Maryen's family moved to Miami. -
Owned several studios
Maryen briefly danced for the USO; forbidden by her father to continue dancing, she instead began teaching children to dance in 1944 and opened her own studio in 1945. Maryen owned and operated several successful studios in the Miami Beach area for twenty years. -
Marriage
Maryen retired from teaching in Miami to marry George L. "Solley" and gave the studios to her retiring dancers so that they would keep her name in Miami. -
Birth of Abby Lee Miller
Eighteen months after founding the school, Maryen gave birth to Abby. Maryen enrolled her daughter under her dance company but never forced her to be in competition or go to dance class. -
Young Choreographer
Abby danced at her mothers studio on and off but when she was about 13 she found her true calling when she choreographed a number for a competition and it won everything. -
Opening her own dance studio
At age 14 Abby Lee Miller opened up her own dance studio and named it the "Abby Lee Dance Studio" -
Her students are stars
Over the years, Miller's students have gone on to dance in such Broadway productions as Footloose, Wicked and The Lion King as well as in Radio City's Christmas Spectacular. She went to see her old students perform all the time on these broadway shows. -
Front desk
When Abby first bought the studio, her father George was the runner of the front desk. He managed the class times and all of the money management, but since they had Abby so late in their lives he had to retire about 15 years later. That's also a leading factor causing her debt to become unmanageable. -
3000-4000
People started to come to her studio to take classes and she quickly got quite the name for herself and has produced many stars out of those 3000-4000 students over the years. -
Fell into the debt hole
"dispite what people may think my dance lessons are quite cheap"-Abby, Abby was not very strict on money back in the day and lost a lot of money from people not paying for their classes or leaving at the end without paying. She filed for bankruptcy in 2010 for a $250k mortgage on the dance company. -
Dance Moms
In 2011 Abby came up with the idea for Dance Moms with her friend who happened to be a producer and they brought that idea to lifetime and it sold in a flash. -
Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition Season 1
Abby was approached to do another show "Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition" which was dancers ages 6 to 12 competing in dance untill there was a winner that got a $100 000 scholarship to Joeffry Ballet School. -
Broadway Baby
In December 2012, Her dog, Broadway Baby passed away due to kidney failure, we saw this on the tv show and it jerked a lot of hearts, and Abbys heart was broken. She was sixteen years old when she died, because she was born in 1996. -
AUDC season 2
The first season of Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition went so good she was approached to do another season -
The Big Fight
Abby was always nagging on Kelly, one of the dance moms and had accused her of doing something that she didn't do or say so kelly started verbally screaming at her, then Abby got up in her face and and was doing a biting/eating action in her face so kelly then hit Abby and pulled her hair. We watched the whole fight on Dance Moms when that episode aired. -
The Hylands are Kicked out of ALDC
After the fight with Abby, Kelly left the competition and the week following, the girls are kicked out of the ALDC. Kelly, Brooke, and Paige are happy about this action becuase they have been trying to leave the aldc for 2 years before this event but could not because of their contract. Brooke was one of Abby's favourite students and still wished her the best, but Paige was verbally assaulted by Abby many times and was very glad to see her leave. -
Abby's mom died
Maryen died of colon cancer but lived a very fulfilling life, and dance always lives in her heart. We slowly were watching this happen on Dance Moms over about 5 episodes. They were probably some of the most emotional times on the show. -
Charges dropped
After Abby and Kelly fought, Abby called the police and filed a lawsuit against Kelly. Kelly then does the same to Abby and also to Lifetime because she did not get paid for the last season she was on and it states in the contract that she has too. Kelly's daughter also files a lawsuit against Abby a few weeks after for emotional distress and causing her panic attacks. After going to court several times on this date all the lawsuits were dropped. -
Abby steps up to Manager
Mackenzie Ziegler the youngest on the team was very good at singing and had asked Abby if she could do something with that. Abby then decided that she would be her manager as well as the other kids. She and Mackenzie made an album and her first single that came out hit #1 on the charts. Then for that same song she did a music video that has over 10 million views on youtube. -
Sia
Sia had messaged one of Abby's favourite dancers to be in her video for the song Chandelier. She was the only one in the video and dancing the whole time. The video was nominated for best music video of the year at the grammy's and won best choreographed music video also at the grammy's, really putting the name of the Abby Lee Dance Company out there. -
My own Book
Abby always has so much to say she decided for a change that she would write it down for the world to read. -
Abby's Studio Rescue
Gaining so much fame, Abby was then asked to do yet another show called Abby's studio Rescue, which she's always wanted to do but never had the oppourtunity. -
Chloe leaves ALDC
Dance moms Kelly and Christi have been trying to leave the aldc since season 2 ended but they signed a contract up to season 4 so as soon as season 4 was done they left. It was a very big shock to the dance moms fans because Chloe was the fan favourite. Abby was very excited about the news that they were gone. Abby hated Christi by the end of the show with a passion. So in the end it was a good thing, because Abby took her anger out on Chloe and it could have gotten a lot worse. -
Season 5 Dance Moms
Dance moms has succsessfully found themselves another season. Season 5 of dance moms premiered on January 6 2015. This is probaby one of the most interesting seasons. With all the fame they have gotten people travel around the globe to try and beat them at competitions. With the girls all getting older the team has also started to move up into the preteen division and they have much more competition there as well. -
Dance Moms wins at KCA's
Dance Moms has been voted in for best reality tv show for 2 years now at a couple different events but this year at the Kids Choice Awards they finally won!!!! -
Music Videos by Abby Lee Miller
Another student with a beautiful voice also got the opppurtunity to get her own song and music video. Kendall K, the video was just released this month and the song was out last month. Abby has also produced both of these music videos. -
Abby Wins best Villan Reality TV Awards
Abby Lee Miller wins best villain on the Reality TV Show awards. Dance moms also wins Best Reacurring Cast. Last year at this event they lost to "Living it up with the Kardashians." but this year they won and they were so excited. -
ALDC goes LA
This very day Abby's new studio in LA had its grand opening, This picture is the girls in the first video of them dancing in it. It has been Abby's dream to open up a studio in LA and to get out of Pittsburg, her words. So finally she bought a place down there and it has been renovated for about 2 months and its finally ready. She has said that she wants her select team to move down there so they can have more opportunities.
