Biography
Born on 23 June 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, Robert Louis Fosse died on 23 September 1987 in Washington, DC. His work as a director, choreographer, dancer and actor spanned stage and screen, where he became celebrated for staging that placed thrilling dance at the center of every production. From childhood he trained in ballet, tap and acrobatics, and as a boy he appeared with a partner in the act known as the Riff Brothers across vaudeville and burlesque circuits. After finishing high school in 1945 he served two years in the US Navy, then relocated to New York to study acting at the American Theatre Wing. Chorus work in touring companies followed until his Broadway debut as a dancer in the 1950 revue Dance Me A Song. Engagements in television, theatres and nightclubs led to a Hollywood contract and three 1953 pictures: Give A Girl A Break, The Affairs Of Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me, Kate. Back in New York, playwright-director George Abbott gave him his first major assignment, choreographing the 1954 hit The Pajama Game. During preparations for Damn Yankees the following year he met Gwen Verdon; the couple married in 1960.
Fosse supplied the dances for Bells Are Ringing in 1956 and reunited with Verdon on New Girl In Town in 1957. Thereafter, apart from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying in 1961, he both staged the movement and directed the productions themselves. Critics have credited this combined authority with the achievements of Redhead (1959), Little Me (1962), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), Chicago (1975) and Dancin’ (1978). Parallel film projects included My Sister Eileen (1955), The Pajama Game (1957) and Damn Yankees (1958), each of which found favor. Yet Sweet Charity in 1968, over which Fosse exercised complete control as director and choreographer, drew widespread criticism aimed at Shirley MacLaine’s flamboyant portrayal and at his own intrusive camerawork—extreme close-ups, rapid zooms and soft-focus effects. Several fallow years ended when Cabaret, featuring Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, captured eight Academy Awards, including one for Fosse. The commercial triumph was matched by purist approval for restricting dance numbers to credible settings such as beer gardens and nightclubs instead of filling Berlin’s streets with extraneous performers.
In the early 1970s Fosse directed Lenny, a biographical film about comedian Lenny Bruce that starred Dustin Hoffman. Observers familiar with his recent cardiac difficulties, relentless work habits and perfectionism viewed All That Jazz (1979) as a veiled self-portrait, its morbid and introspective treatment of mortality offset by the acknowledged excellence of the choreography and Roy Scheider’s central performance. Fosse wrote and directed one further picture, the darkly sensational Star 80, released in 1983. Three years afterward he wrote, staged and choreographed the Broadway musical Big Deal, a venture widely judged to fall short of its name and an unsatisfying coda to a career that had earned eight Tony Awards for some of the most inventive and exhilarating dance ever presented on stage or screen. In 1987 he mounted a revival of Sweet Charity; he suffered a fatal heart attack hours before the opening curtain on 23 September. The 1990 documentary Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, produced by WNET/Thirteen, later examined his life and method. Chicago returned to Broadway and the West End in 1996/7, its choreography by Ann Reinking (born 10 November 1949) created “in the style of Bob Fosse.” Early in 1999 a retrospective titled Fosse opened on Broadway under the direction of Richard Maltby Jr. and Reinking, with additional choreography by Reinking and Chet Walker.
Fosse supplied the dances for Bells Are Ringing in 1956 and reunited with Verdon on New Girl In Town in 1957. Thereafter, apart from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying in 1961, he both staged the movement and directed the productions themselves. Critics have credited this combined authority with the achievements of Redhead (1959), Little Me (1962), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), Chicago (1975) and Dancin’ (1978). Parallel film projects included My Sister Eileen (1955), The Pajama Game (1957) and Damn Yankees (1958), each of which found favor. Yet Sweet Charity in 1968, over which Fosse exercised complete control as director and choreographer, drew widespread criticism aimed at Shirley MacLaine’s flamboyant portrayal and at his own intrusive camerawork—extreme close-ups, rapid zooms and soft-focus effects. Several fallow years ended when Cabaret, featuring Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, captured eight Academy Awards, including one for Fosse. The commercial triumph was matched by purist approval for restricting dance numbers to credible settings such as beer gardens and nightclubs instead of filling Berlin’s streets with extraneous performers.
In the early 1970s Fosse directed Lenny, a biographical film about comedian Lenny Bruce that starred Dustin Hoffman. Observers familiar with his recent cardiac difficulties, relentless work habits and perfectionism viewed All That Jazz (1979) as a veiled self-portrait, its morbid and introspective treatment of mortality offset by the acknowledged excellence of the choreography and Roy Scheider’s central performance. Fosse wrote and directed one further picture, the darkly sensational Star 80, released in 1983. Three years afterward he wrote, staged and choreographed the Broadway musical Big Deal, a venture widely judged to fall short of its name and an unsatisfying coda to a career that had earned eight Tony Awards for some of the most inventive and exhilarating dance ever presented on stage or screen. In 1987 he mounted a revival of Sweet Charity; he suffered a fatal heart attack hours before the opening curtain on 23 September. The 1990 documentary Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, produced by WNET/Thirteen, later examined his life and method. Chicago returned to Broadway and the West End in 1996/7, its choreography by Ann Reinking (born 10 November 1949) created “in the style of Bob Fosse.” Early in 1999 a retrospective titled Fosse opened on Broadway under the direction of Richard Maltby Jr. and Reinking, with additional choreography by Reinking and Chet Walker.