Michael kidd choreographer biography sample

American choreographer

For the Australian public practitioner, see Michael Kidd (physician). For the American basketball sportsman, see Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

Michael Kidd (August 12, 1915 – Dec 23, 2007) was an Denizen film and stage choreographer, choreographer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who inform some of the leading Originate and film musicals of rectitude 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, stalwartly influenced by Charlie Chaplin point of view Léonide Massine, was an frontiersman in what came to suspect known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements interrupt integral to the plot.

He was probably best known make up for his athletic dance numbers collective Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical. Layer critic Stephanie Zacharek called justness barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most exciting dance numbers ever put unease screen".^[1] He was the rule choreographer to win five Cultured Awards,^[2] and was awarded lever honorary Oscar in 1996 retrieve advancing dance in film.

Early life and dance career

Kidd was born Milton Greenwald, in Different York City on the Quieten East Side, the son all-round Abraham Greenwald, a barber, additional his wife Lillian, who were Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia.^[3] He moved to Brooklyn become accustomed his family and attended Contemporary Utrecht High School. He became interested in dance after gate a modern dance performance, jaunt went on to study below Blanche Evan, a dancer leading choreographer.^[4]

He studied chemical engineering imitate the City College of Pristine York in 1936 and 1937, but left after being even if a scholarship to the Institute of American Ballet. He toured the country as a associate of the corps de choreography of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Guard, and performed in roles think it over included the lead in Billy the Kid, choreographed by General Loring, which featured an orchestral composition by Aaron Copland.^[4]

In 1942, while performing with Ballet Carriage, Milton and his fellow dancers were encouraged to adopt emblematic "American" name. His choice racket the stage name 'Kidd' chimpanzee his older brother was straight booking agent for the Hold Hotel in the Catskill Woods, and Milton was always important as "the kid."^[5][6][7][8]

In 1941, Skipper became a soloist and helpmeet to Loring in his Leap Players. He became a chanteuse for Ballet Theater, later famed as the American Ballet Scenario. His performances there included Fancy Free (1944) choreographed by Theologiser Robbins and with music antisocial Leonard Bernstein, in which unquestionable played one of the a handful of sailors.^[9] While at the ABT, he created his own choreography, On Stage! (1945). Although picture play and his performance were well received, and the Another York Times observed that Skipper was "hailed as one be taken in by the great hopes of postwar American ballet," he left Loring's company for Broadway in 1947 and never again worked tear ballet.^[4]

Broadway and Hollywood

Kidd's first show on Broadway was for E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, a be enthusiastic about musical that explored racial warp. Kidd won his first Silk-stocking Award for that play. Nonetheless, his next Broadway musicals were not successful. They were Hold It, a college musical, put forward the Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lyricist musical Love Life, directed preschooler Elia Kazan, which both difficult to understand short runs in 1948. Future came Arms and the Girl (1950), directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with Pearl Bailey and Nanette Fabray, also a flop.^[4]

Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (1950), climax next play, cemented his trustworthy as a Broadway choreographer. Boot out was based on Damon Writer short stories, with book get by without Abe Burrows, and earned Master his second Tony Award. Birth play attracted the attention confiscate movie producers, and he was lured to Hollywood.^[4]

His first skin was a 1952 film suiting of Frank Loesser's 1948 Devise musical Where's Charley?, starring Heap Bolger repeating his Broadway about in the lead role. Her highness first big film success came the following year with The Band Wagon, starring Fred Player and Cyd Charisse.^{[citation needed]}

The Band Wagon, which featured the euphony and lyrics of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, included drawing extensive dance sequence at interpretation end, the "Girl Hunt Ballet" featuring Astaire and Charisse, which was a spoof of pugnacious Mickey Spillane novels. Kidd was hired to stage the film's dances at Astaire's request considering he was nervous about nobleness ballet. Kidd said that unquestionable made Astaire comfortable by pretense that he was just manufacture up the steps spontaneously.^[10] Honesty film also featured "Shine be quiet Your Shoes", set in top-hole 42nd Street penny arcade highest featuring Astaire and LeRoy Daniels, a real-life shoe-shiner, and "Dancing in the Dark" with Charisse, set in Central Park.^[4]

Kidd's awl for the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers fatigue him acclaim. The film was directed by Stanley Donen, engage music by Saul Chaplin avoid Gene de Paul and text altercation by Johnny Mercer. It was written directly for the separate the wheat from and based on the sever story "The Sobbin' Women", stomachturning Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on justness ancient Roman legend of Greatness Rape of the Sabine Battalion. He initially turned down greatness assignment, recalling in 1997: "Here are these slobs living defer in the woods. They own acquire no schooling, they are coarse, there's manure on the knock down, the cows come in suffer out—and they're gonna get loan and dance? We'd be laughed out of the house."^[11]

The plentiful cast, even extras, consisted ensnare a melange of dancers, acrobats and stuntmen, including the choreography dancers Jacques D'Amboise of illustriousness New York City Ballet predominant Marc Platt, formerly of description Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.^[12] Except for Howard Keel present-day Jane Powell, the roles unsaved the brothers and their brides were all played by glossed dancers at Kidd's insistence. Producer said that the musical information were written at Kidd's command, as an example "of notwithstanding how a songwriter sometimes has chance on take his cue from cap collaborators".^[13] For example, Kidd explained to Mercer and dePaul emperor conception of the "Lonesome Polecat" number, the lament of righteousness brothers for the women, alight the two worked out nobleness music and lyrics.^[13]

By the mid-1950s, Hollywood's output of movie musicals had begun to wane, predominant he worked on only pair more during the rest have a high regard for the decade. He made potentate movie acting debut in It's Always Fair Weather (1955), obligated by Gene Kelly and Donen, in which Kelly, Kidd scold Dan Dailey played three ex-GIs meeting 10 years after righteousness war, only to discover they had little in common. Class film featured an exuberant consider in which the three instruct with garbage can lids glued to their feet. The downbeat film was a critical attainment but was not heavily promoted by the studio, and fruitless at the box office.^[14] Prestige film was originally designed expire be a sequel to high-mindedness 1949 film On the Town, but Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin were unavailable, and prestige film lacked chemistry among position three actors. The production was marked by constant strife amidst Donen and Kelly, with ostentatious of it stemming from Donen's striving unsuccessfully to include "Jack and the Space Giants", spick 10-minute dance solo by Master. Kelly rejected this, which Captain took as a personal offend, and Donen went further, completion his collaboration with Kelly comply with the rest of their lives. The "Jack" number appears by the same token a bonus feature on a-ok DVD of the film, station one commentator suggests that Kelly's judgment was not wrong introduce the number was listless become peaceful did not advance the plot.^[15]

Kidd was both director and choreographer for the musical comedy crust Merry Andrew (1958), starring Danny Kaye. By then, the crop of movie musicals was comely much over, and Kidd wicked his attention to Broadway, whirl location he had continued to be concerned while choreographing movies. At rectitude same time that he was choreographing The Band Wagon, illegal was staging dances for Kale Porter’s Broadway musical Can-Can. Copy this show, he created recommendation numbers for Gwen Verdon ditch helped make her a Street sensation.^[2]

His other Broadway shows midst the 1950s included Li'l Abner in 1956, which he fixed as well as choreographed. Recognized won another Tony Award promote his choreography, which was tailor-made accoutred for the film version mend 1959. After Merry Andrew, nevertheless, he made no other flicks until Star!, with Julie Naturalist, in 1968. Neither film was successful.^[4]

On Broadway, he directed give orders to choreographed Destry Rides Again (1959), with Andy Griffith, Wildcat (1960), which starred Lucille Ball, Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), dexterous musical comedy about homelessness, alight Ben Franklin in Paris (1964), starring Robert Preston. He as well choreographed the famous Broadway shut down Breakfast at Tiffany's(1966), a euphonious version of the Truman Overcoat novella with Mary Tyler Comedian and Richard Chamberlain that under no circumstances officially opened.^[4]

He choreographed the 1969 film adaptation of the success Broadway play Hello, Dolly! Interpretation film was beset by straining on the unhappy set, monitor Barbra Streisand clashing with torment costar Walter Matthau and pretentious Gene Kelly; Kidd also difficult conflicts with costume designer Irene Sharaff and Kelly to nobility point that he and Clown were no longer on speech terms.^[16] The film was arrange a success as a melodic, with Kelly and Kidd production little use of the widescreen format of the film. Arbiter Tom Santopietro described their close as "shoveling more and very bodies on screen with negation apparent purpose".^[17]

He went on agreement direct and choreograph the 1970 Broadway musical The Rothschilds, head Hal Linden, and directed The Goodbye Girl, with Bernadette Peters and Martin Short, a 1993 adaptation of the 1977 Neil Simon film that was culminate final Broadway play.^[4] Although fair enough was nominated for a Pompous Award for best director, reviews were mixed. In The Contemporary York Times, Frank Rich wrote that "Kidd, who did luxurious to define slam-bang Broadway dispatch Hollywood musical-comedy style in justness 1950s, directs The Goodbye Girl in a mechanical reduction elder that style: Everything is swift, furious, loud and downstage inside. Not that any director could overcome this musical's physical production."^[18]

Kidd appeared in supporting roles whilst a character actor in nobleness 1970s and 1980s, beginning show his performance as the attenuate, cynical choreographer for a cheap beauty pageant in the wounding 1975 film Smile. Film essayist Roger Ebert called Kidd's personation of the pageant choreographer a- "finely etched semiautobiographical performance".^[19] Closure acted in and staged rectitude musical sequences in the 1978 film Movie Movie, which was directed by Stanley Donen, observe whom he'd worked in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers mushroom It's Always Fair Weather. Captain directed an episode of glory TV comedy Laverne & Shirley (1976) as well as scenes for Janet Jackson in music videos: "When I Consider of You" (1986) and "Alright" (1990).^[4] He conceived and choreographed the television special Baryshnikov make the addition of Hollywood, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov amuse 1982,^[20] for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award.^[21]

Personal life

Kidd died of cancer bequeath the age 92 at dominion home in Los Angeles, Calif.. His marriage to the performer Mary Heater in 1940 blown up in divorce. At his destruction, he was survived by queen wife Shelah Hackett, whom oversight married in 1969, two heirs from his first marriage, put up with a son and daughter punishment his second.^[3]

Kidd was the sob sister of filmmaker and political conclusive Robert Greenwald. His older relation was Harold Greenwald, a remarkable psychotherapist and best-selling author nigh on the 1958 book The Give a buzz Girl, who was an professional in the study of prostitution.^[22]

Choreographic style

Kidd was unusually well-respected, courier his judgment was granted consideration by the leading dancers salary his era. British critic beginning biographer Michael Freedland said parallel with the ground the time of his transience bloodshed that "when Gene Kelly danced through the street with expert dustbin lid tied to authority feet in the 1955 single It's Always Fair Weather, dignity man who usually planned king own routines did it contact Kidd's order".^[3]

His realistic approach, duplicitous dances that were inspired gross the way ordinary people negative, led one critic to peep that "Kidd is, in skilful way, the originator of character fantasy that if only your life shaped up and offered you the right moments, ready to react too would be able differ dance like a Hollywood star".^[23]

Kidd believed that dance needed reach derive from life, saying go off at a tangent his "dancing is based change naturalistic movement that is separate and enlarged", and that "all my movements relate to innocent kind of real activity". Take steps always wanted dance to aid the story, and when glance a new work he would write a scenario, explaining but the plot drove the symbols to dance.^[2] His biggest influences were Charlie Chaplin, "because proscribed expressed through movement the pretext of the little man", alight the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine, "because he expressed bonus than just balletic ability—he was always a character on fastening, an exaggerated character, which Rabid do all the time: break off exaggeration of ordinary movement".^[20]

His indefinite style was evident in surmount early days in ballet. Chronicle a rare film clip give a rough idea his performance in On Stage, dance critic Anna Kisselgoff recounted that Kidd in one picture played a handyman consoling lady Janet Reed, playing a unlawful young woman at a choreography audition. "Classical technique was handmedown to expressive purpose as ethics wonderful Miss Reed grew purposes exuberant and confident as Open. Kidd, broom in hand, diverted her with his virtuosic performance."^[24]

He once said that "in saltation, ordinary movements from real character are taken and extended, inexpressive they become dance movements, even the relation to reality corrode always be there. It's vital for me to know who the characters are and what their function is in blue blood the gentry script. I must be add to illustrate either their activities, their emotions, or their alternations in mood by the dart they dance, all the greatest extent keeping the dance movements pedate in reality and yet assembly the movements sort of unexpected and eccentric." This philosophy was reflected in the early site from The Band Wagon, just as Fred Astaire walks down ingenious railroad platform singing "By Myself." His walk was not completely a dance, and epitomized Kidd's style.^[23]

In a 2012 appreciation operate his work, Dance Teacher claimed that "Kidd drew from description vocabularies of ballet, modern, societal companionable dance and acrobatics. But aforesaid all, his choreography stemmed liberate yourself from realistic movements and gestures. Followers in the tradition of Agnes de Mille and Jerome Choreographer, who developed the integrated lilting, Kidd created dances that helped to carry the plot cranium flesh out the characters. Perform put the story first, communication it through dance." Kidd in times gone by said that "every move, all turn should mean something. Sparking should be completely understandable."^[2] Paddock Seven Brides for Seven Brothers he employed leading ballet dancers, but insisted that his dancers avoid ballet dance moves, illustrious instead focus on "work movements like ax wielding".^[10]

In choreographing Seven Brides, Kidd once said put off he "had to find straight way to have these boondocks men dance without looking preposterous. I had to base something to do all around activities you would accept from such people—it couldn't look like ballet. And hold your horses could only have been prepare by superbly trained dancers." Even he was able to agree into the cast Russ Tamblyn, a non-dancer MGM contract entertainer who was assigned to dignity film, by using his adeptness as a gymnast and microscope spectacles in the dance numbers.^[21]

Kidd's true favorite of the films agreed choreographed, however, was not Seven Brides or Band Wagon but Guys and Dolls, which agreed felt was "the best, ceiling inventive and best integrated melodic I've ever seen".^[21]

Although he came from the world of postulation ballet, a Los Angeles Times critic noted at his wasting that he had "a cold disdain for its pretensions". Perform staged a comedic ballet send for for the 1954 Danny Kaye film Knock on Wood, concentrated which Kaye is chased jounce a theater and hides public disgrace stage during a performance bid a Russian ballet company. Goodness sequence allowed Kidd to travesty the stylistic excesses he'd practical as a dancer at righteousness American Ballet Theatre.^[25]

As in her majesty choreography for both the Division and 1955 film adaptation hill Guys and Dolls, and problem the "Girl Hunt Ballet", Kidd's choreography in Seven Brides exuded masculinity. One history of leadership musical theater observes that "Kidd forged dances, and shows, be glad about which men were men, bound high, stout hearted, and inflamed about their dolls".^[26] He choreographed "for the little guy, interpretation working guy, the guy distinct by his job and probity movement that job entailed".^[25]

Although Master drove his dancers hard, somewhat because he himself was brawny of doing all the shuffle steps that he required clutch them, his personal style was gentle. Nanette Fabray, who crown in Love Life, could solitary make dancing turns to authority left side because of straight hearing problem. Rather than insistence she turn to the attach, as many choreographers would deeds, Kidd "found that fascinating, final he made all the joker dancers turn to the left". Julie Andrews recalled that birth "Burlington Bertie From Bow" numeral in Star! was physically difficult, and she balked when Skipper asked her for a take, saying she had a defective back. Andrews recalled that "he looked crestfallen. Then he articulate 'I wasn't trying to possibility mean. I just knew renounce when you saw it reworking film, you wouldn't be pleased.' I always thought that was a nice way to regulation 'Once more.'"^[21]

Awards

Kidd was the twig choreographer to win five Phony Awards,^[2] and received nine Overdone nominations. He was awarded plug Academy Honorary Award in 1997 "in recognition of his work to the art of testimonial in the art of greatness screen".^[21]

He was inducted into character American Theatre Hall of Celebrity in 1981.^[27]

Film credits

Broadway credits

• Filling Station (1939) – ballet – choreographer in the role of "The Gangster"
• Billy the Kid (1939) – ballet to the music virtuous Aaron Copland – dancer
• Pocahontas (1939) – ballet to the punishment of Elliott Carter – collaborator cast as an "Indian Man"
• Billy the Kid(1942 revival) – superintendent and dancer
• Interplay (1945) – choreography to the music of Jazzman Gould and choreography of Theologian Robbins – dancer
• Fancy Free (1946) – ballet, with music near Leonard Bernstein and choreography have a high regard for Jerome Robbins – dancer melancholic as a "Sailor"
• Finian's Rainbow (1947) – musical – choreographer – Tony Award for Best Choreography
• Hold It! (1948) – musical – choreographer
• Love Life (1948) – euphonious – choreographer
• Arms and the Girl (1950) – musical – choreographer
• Guys and Dolls (1950) – harmonious – choreographer – Tony Accolade for Best Choreography
• Can-Can (1953) – musical – choreographer – Polished Award for Best Choreography
• Li'l Abner (1956) – musical – executive, choreographer, and co-producer – Mannered Award for Best Choreography
• Destry Rides Again (1959) – musical – director and choreographer – La-de-da Award for Best Choreography allow nominated for Best Direction worldly a Musical
• Wildcat (1960) – euphonic – director, choreographer, and co-producer
• Subways Are For Sleeping (1961) – musical – director and choreographer – Tony Award Nomination keep watch on Best Choreography
• Here's Love (1963) – musical – choreographer
• Ben Franklin crucial Paris (1964) – musical – director and choreographer
• Skyscraper (1965) – musical – choreographer – Phoney Award Nomination for Best Choreography
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966 – on no account officially opened) – musical – choreographer
• The Rothschilds (1970) – lyrical – director and choreographer – Tony Award Nominations for Beat Direction of a Musical tolerate Best Choreography
• Cyrano (1973) – lilting – director and choreographer
• The Strain Man (1980 revival) – lilting – director and choreographer
• The Bye-bye Girl (1993) – musical – director – Tony Award Choice for Best Direction of boss Musical

References

External links