Corky Ballas is a retired ballroom dance champion who hit the stage for Dancing With The Stars Season 7, apparently to close the age gap with 82-year-old Cloris Leachman, the oldest celebrity dancer to appear on DWTS. They survived surprisingly deep into the competition, finishing seventh of the 13 couples.

Corky's son Mark has been a professional dancer on Dancing With The Stars since Season 5, and Corky and his wife and former partner Shirley also helped train and raise DWTS pros Derek and Julianne Hough.

Corky also helped train many other Dancing With The Stars pros, including Tony Dovolani, Alec Mazo, Jonathan Roberts, Edyta Sliwinska and Karina Smirnoff. He was born in Houston, where his father ran one of the largest dance studios in the world, and has lived and danced in London and Los Angeles.


CORKY BALLAS PHOTOS