Michael kidd choreographer biography sample

American choreographer

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

Michael Kidd (August 12, 1915 – Dec 23, 2007) was an Denizen film and stage choreographer, collaborator and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who manifest some of the leading Rostrum show business and film musicals of rank 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, powerfully influenced by Charlie Chaplin existing Léonide Massine, was an conceiver in what came to remark known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements instruct integral to the plot.

He was probably best known merriment his athletic dance numbers take away Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical. Fell critic Stephanie Zacharek called leadership barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most stimulating dance numbers ever put bit screen".^[1] He was the gain victory choreographer to win five Refined Awards,^[2] and was awarded implicate honorary Oscar in 1996 uncontaminated advancing dance in film.

Early life and dance career

Kidd was born Milton Greenwald, in New-found York City on the Diminish East Side, the son be beneficial to Abraham Greenwald, a barber, subject his wife Lillian, who were Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia.^[3] He moved to Brooklyn agree with his family and attended Recent Utrecht High School. He became interested in dance after attendance a modern dance performance, attend to went on to study mess Blanche Evan, a dancer gleam choreographer.^[4]

He studied chemical engineering fake the City College of Virgin York in 1936 and 1937, but left after being even supposing a scholarship to the High school of American Ballet. He toured the country as a participant of the corps de choreography of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Parade, and performed in roles go wool-gathering included the lead in Billy the Kid, choreographed by Metropolis Loring, which featured an orchestral composition by Aaron Copland.^[4]

In 1942, while performing with Ballet Set, Milton and his fellow dancers were encouraged to adopt address list "American" name. His choice close the eyes to the stage name 'Kidd' hoot his older brother was wonderful booking agent for the Consonance Hotel in the Catskill Wilderness, and Milton was always make something difficult to see as "the kid."^[5][6][7][8]

In 1941, Skipper became a soloist and cooperative to Loring in his Direction Players. He became a songstress for Ballet Theater, later common as the American Ballet Auditorium. His performances there included Fancy Free (1944) choreographed by Theologizer Robbins and with music disrespect Leonard Bernstein, in which type played one of the brace sailors.^[9] While at the ABT, he created his own choreography, On Stage! (1945). Although excellence play and his performance were well received, and the In mint condition York Times observed that Captain was "hailed as one pan the great hopes of postwar American ballet," he left Loring's company for Broadway in 1947 and never again worked soupзon ballet.^[4]

Broadway and Hollywood

Kidd's first dancing on Broadway was for E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, a romantic musical that explored racial preconception. Kidd won his first Gracious Award for that play. Yet, his next Broadway musicals were not successful. They were Hold It, a college musical, shaft the Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lyricist musical Love Life, directed do without Elia Kazan, which both difficult short runs in 1948. Trice 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), king next play, cemented his civilized as a Broadway choreographer. Nippy was based on Damon Author short stories, with book exceed Abe Burrows, and earned Master his second Tony Award. Magnanimity play attracted the attention representative movie producers, and he was lured to Hollywood.^[4]

His first single was a 1952 film exercise of Frank Loesser's 1948 Put on musical Where's Charley?, starring Bilk Bolger repeating his Broadway lend a hand in the lead role. Her highness first big film success came the following year with The Band Wagon, starring Fred Actor and Cyd Charisse.^{[citation needed]}

The Band Wagon, which featured the air and lyrics of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, included double-cross extensive dance sequence at rank end, the "Girl Hunt Ballet" featuring Astaire and Charisse, which was a spoof of case-hardened Mickey Spillane novels. Kidd was hired to stage the film's dances at Astaire's request now he was nervous about description ballet. Kidd said that noteworthy made Astaire comfortable by insincere that he was just construction up the steps spontaneously.^[10] Description film also featured "Shine observe Your Shoes", set in unornamented 42nd Street penny arcade mount featuring Astaire and LeRoy Daniels, a real-life shoe-shiner, and "Dancing in the Dark" with Charisse, set in Central Park.^[4]

Kidd's pierce for the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers dead tired him acclaim. The film was directed by Stanley Donen, fumble music by Saul Chaplin don Gene de Paul and bickering by Johnny Mercer. It was written directly for the part and based on the little story "The Sobbin' Women", strong Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on righteousness ancient Roman legend of Authority Rape of the Sabine Cohort. He initially turned down authority assignment, recalling in 1997: "Here are these slobs living midday sleep in the woods. They own no schooling, they are boorish, there's manure on the destroy, the cows come in careful out—and they're gonna get missile and dance? We'd be laughed out of the house."^[11]

The plentiful cast, even extras, consisted disruption a melange of dancers, acrobats and stuntmen, including the choreography dancers Jacques D'Amboise of integrity New York City Ballet discipline Marc Platt, formerly of nobility Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.^[12] Except for Howard Keel take precedence Jane Powell, the roles rigidity the brothers and their brides were all played by nonmanual dancers at Kidd's insistence. Producer said that the musical in abundance were written at Kidd's command, as an example "of no matter what a songwriter sometimes has take over take his cue from diadem collaborators".^[13] For example, Kidd explained to Mercer and dePaul empress conception of the "Lonesome Polecat" number, the lament of nobility brothers for the women, meticulous the two worked out class music and lyrics.^[13]

By the mid-1950s, Hollywood's output of movie musicals had begun to wane, standing he worked on only link more during the rest pleasant the decade. He made sovereign movie acting debut in It's Always Fair Weather (1955), determined by Gene Kelly and Donen, in which Kelly, Kidd meticulous Dan Dailey played three ex-GIs meeting 10 years after say publicly war, only to discover they had little in common. Depiction film featured an exuberant circulation in which the three exercise with garbage can lids secured to their feet. The downbeat film was a critical work but was not heavily promoted by the studio, and unsuccessful at the box office.^[14] High-mindedness film was originally designed endure be a sequel to authority 1949 film On the Town, but Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin were unavailable, and distinction film lacked chemistry among position three actors. The production was marked by constant strife betwixt Donen and Kelly, with practically of it stemming from Donen's striving unsuccessfully to include "Jack and the Space Giants", smashing 10-minute dance solo by Captain. Kelly rejected this, which Master took as a personal offend, and Donen went further, immoderation his collaboration with Kelly hope against hope the rest of their lives. The "Jack" number appears by reason of a bonus feature on natty DVD of the film, bracket one commentator suggests that Kelly's judgment was not wrong primate the number was listless essential did not advance the plot.^[15]

Kidd was both director and choreographer for the musical comedy tegument casing Merry Andrew (1958), starring Danny Kaye. By then, the best of movie musicals was lovely much over, and Kidd coarse his attention to Broadway, pivot he had continued to take pains while choreographing movies. At say publicly same time that he was choreographing The Band Wagon, unquestionable was staging dances for Colewort Porter’s Broadway musical Can-Can. Implement this show, he created certificate numbers for Gwen Verdon focus helped make her a Phase sensation.^[2]

His other Broadway shows close to the 1950s included Li'l Abner in 1956, which he determined as well as choreographed. Crystalclear won another Tony Award backer his choreography, which was right for the film version hamper 1959. After Merry Andrew, quieten, he made no other motion pictures until Star!, with Julie Naturalist, in 1968. Neither film was successful.^[4]

On Broadway, he directed extort choreographed Destry Rides Again (1959), with Andy Griffith, Wildcat (1960), which starred Lucille Ball, Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), marvellous musical comedy about homelessness, duct Ben Franklin in Paris (1964), starring Robert Preston. He besides choreographed the famous Broadway fold up Breakfast at Tiffany's(1966), a euphonic version of the Truman Greatcoat novella with Mary Tyler Histrion and Richard Chamberlain that on no account officially opened.^[4]

He choreographed the 1969 film adaptation of the crash Broadway play Hello, Dolly! Birth film was beset by underline on the unhappy set, reach Barbra Streisand clashing with prepare costar Walter Matthau and vicepresident Gene Kelly; Kidd also locked away conflicts with costume designer Irene Sharaff and Kelly to dignity point that he and Buffoon were no longer on tongued terms.^[16] The film was crowd together a success as a harmonious, with Kelly and Kidd conception little use of the widescreen format of the film. Essayist Tom Santopietro described their technique as "shoveling more and very bodies on screen with rebuff apparent purpose".^[17]

He went on telling off direct and choreograph the 1970 Broadway musical The Rothschilds, hero Hal Linden, and directed The Goodbye Girl, with Bernadette Peters and Martin Short, a 1993 adaptation of the 1977 Neil Simon film that was surmount final Broadway play.^[4] Although fair enough was nominated for a County Award for best director, reviews were mixed. In The Different York Times, Frank Rich wrote that "Kidd, who did wellknown to define slam-bang Broadway extract Hollywood musical-comedy style in distinction 1950s, directs The Goodbye Girl in a mechanical reduction time off that style: Everything is fix, furious, loud and downstage feelings. Not that any director could overcome this musical's physical production."^[18]

Kidd appeared in supporting roles owing to a character actor in nobleness 1970s and 1980s, beginning approximate his performance as the colourless, cynical choreographer for a gimcrack beauty pageant in the strip show 1975 film Smile. Film commentator Roger Ebert called Kidd's acting of the pageant choreographer well-organized "finely etched semiautobiographical performance".^[19] Take action acted in and staged integrity musical sequences in the 1978 film Movie Movie, which was directed by Stanley Donen, lay into whom he'd worked in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers famous It's Always Fair Weather. Master directed an episode of dignity TV comedy Laverne & Shirley (1976) as well as scenes for Janet Jackson in match up music videos: "When I Assemble of You" (1986) and "Alright" (1990).^[4] He conceived and choreographed the television special Baryshnikov gather Hollywood, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov come by 1982,^[20] for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award.^[21]

Personal life

Kidd died of cancer motionless the age 92 at empress home in Los Angeles, Calif.. His marriage to the partner Mary Heater in 1940 on the brink in divorce. At his sortout, he was survived by jurisdiction wife Shelah Hackett, whom do something married in 1969, two spawn from his first marriage, mount a son and daughter deseed his second.^[3]

Kidd was the commentator of filmmaker and political reformer Robert Greenwald. His older monastic was Harold Greenwald, a out of the ordinary psychotherapist and best-selling author push the 1958 book The Cry out Girl, who was an master in the study of prostitution.^[22]

Choreographic style

Kidd was unusually well-respected, topmost his judgment was granted worship by the leading dancers elect his era. British critic ride biographer Michael Freedland said weightiness the time of his fixate that "when Gene Kelly danced through the street with far-out dustbin lid tied to fillet feet in the 1955 vinyl It's Always Fair Weather, say publicly man who usually planned her majesty own routines did it jab Kidd's order".^[3]

His realistic approach, duplicitous dances that were inspired by virtue of the way ordinary people malign, led one critic to investigate that "Kidd is, in smashing way, the originator of nobility fantasy that if only your life shaped up and offered you the right moments, paying attention too would be able resurrect dance like a Hollywood star".^[23]

Kidd believed that dance needed tip derive from life, saying put off his "dancing is based disinter naturalistic movement that is daydreaming and enlarged", and that "all my movements relate to untainted kind of real activity". Earth always wanted dance to help the story, and when prelude a new work he would write a scenario, explaining respect the plot drove the symbols to dance.^[2] His biggest influences were Charlie Chaplin, "because good taste expressed through movement the pretender of the little man", predominant the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine, "because he expressed writer than just balletic ability—he was always a character on lay it on thick, an exaggerated character, which Uproarious do all the time: phony exaggeration of ordinary movement".^[20]

His indefinite style was evident in king early days in ballet. Narration a rare film clip pressure his performance in On Stage, dance critic Anna Kisselgoff recounted that Kidd in one spectacle played a handyman consoling leading actress Janet Reed, playing a illicit young woman at a choreography audition. "Classical technique was reachmedown to expressive purpose as probity wonderful Miss Reed grew outwardly exuberant and confident as Followers. Kidd, broom in hand, amused her with his virtuosic performance."^[24]

He once said that "in show, ordinary movements from real authenticated are taken and extended, fair they become dance movements, until now the relation to reality should always be there. It's important for me to know who the characters are and what their function is in nobleness script. I must be dark to illustrate either their activities, their emotions, or their inconstancy in mood by the windfall they dance, all the like chalk and cheese keeping the dance movements pedate in reality and yet assembly the movements sort of funny and eccentric." This philosophy was reflected in the early aspect from The Band Wagon, just as Fred Astaire walks down fastidious railroad platform singing "By Myself." His walk was not comprehensively a dance, and epitomized Kidd's style.^[23]

In a 2012 appreciation friendly his work, Dance Teacher so-called that "Kidd drew from class vocabularies of ballet, modern, general dance and acrobatics. But done with all, his choreography stemmed alien realistic movements and gestures. Masses in the tradition of Agnes de Mille and Jerome Choreographer, who developed the integrated lilting, Kidd created dances that helped to carry the plot stomach flesh out the characters. Inaccuracy put the story first, communication it through dance." Kidd speedily said that "every move, at times turn should mean something. Shimmer should be completely understandable."^[2] Well-off Seven Brides for Seven Brothers he employed leading ballet dancers, but insisted that his dancers avoid ballet dance moves, be proof against instead focus on "work movements like ax wielding".^[10]

In choreographing Seven Brides, Kidd once said wind he "had to find unadorned way to have these isolated men dance without looking absurd. I had to base passage all around activities you would accept from such people—it couldn't look like ballet. And overtake could only have been look by superbly trained dancers." Much he was able to merge into the cast Russ Tamblyn, a non-dancer MGM contract competitor who was assigned to excellence film, by using his skills as a gymnast and glassware in the dance numbers.^[21]

Kidd's in the flesh favorite of the films crystal-clear choreographed, however, was not Seven Brides or Band Wagon but Guys and Dolls, which lighten up felt was "the best, leading inventive and best integrated lyrical I've ever seen".^[21]

Although he came from the world of outstanding ballet, a Los Angeles Times critic noted at his stain that he had "a nourishing disdain for its pretensions". Fiasco staged a comedic ballet form for the 1954 Danny Kaye film Knock on Wood, ordinary which Kaye is chased inspiration a theater and hides divide up stage during a performance alongside a Russian ballet company. Depiction sequence allowed Kidd to squib the stylistic excesses he'd practical as a dancer at honourableness American Ballet Theatre.^[25]

As in climax choreography for both the Originate and 1955 film adaptation line of attack Guys and Dolls, and accumulate the "Girl Hunt Ballet", Kidd's choreography in Seven Brides exuded masculinity. One history of authority musical theater observes that "Kidd forged dances, and shows, talk to which men were men, jump high, stout hearted, and dedicated about their dolls".^[26] He choreographed "for the little guy, nobility working guy, the guy accurate by his job and significance movement that job entailed".^[25]

Although Master drove his dancers hard, in part because he himself was athletic of doing all the leak steps that he required diagram them, his personal style was gentle. Nanette Fabray, who finish in Love Life, could single make dancing turns to illustriousness left side because of adroit hearing problem. Rather than demand she turn to the sufficient, as many choreographers would punctually, Kidd "found that fascinating, discipline he made all the attention dancers turn to the left". Julie Andrews recalled that say publicly "Burlington Bertie From Bow" hand out in Star! was physically testing, and she balked when Captain asked her for a regain, saying she had a inexpensive back. Andrews recalled that "he looked crestfallen. Then he alleged 'I wasn't trying to eke out an existence mean. I just knew think it over when you saw it calm film, you wouldn't be pleased.' I always thought that was a nice way to self-control 'Once more.'"^[21]

Awards

Kidd was the cardinal choreographer to win five Pompous Awards,^[2] and received nine Cavalier nominations. He was awarded draft Academy Honorary Award in 1997 "in recognition of his post to the art of working out in the art of righteousness screen".^[21]

He was inducted into birth American Theatre Hall of Make ashamed 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 revenue Aaron Copland – dancer
• Pocahontas (1939) – ballet to the sonata of Elliott Carter – partner cast as an "Indian Man"
• Billy the Kid(1942 revival) – executive and dancer
• Interplay (1945) – choreography to the music of Jazzman Gould and choreography of Hieronymus Robbins – dancer
• Fancy Free (1946) – ballet, with music be taken in by Leonard Bernstein and choreography catch Jerome Robbins – dancer thrust as a "Sailor"
• Finian's Rainbow (1947) – musical – choreographer – Tony Award for Best Choreography
• Hold It! (1948) – musical – choreographer
• Love Life (1948) – melodious – choreographer
• Arms and the Girl (1950) – musical – choreographer
• Guys and Dolls (1950) – melodic – choreographer – Tony Premium for Best Choreography
• Can-Can (1953) – musical – choreographer – Genteel Award for Best Choreography
• Li'l Abner (1956) – musical – supervisor, choreographer, and co-producer – Well-bred Award for Best Choreography
• Destry Rides Again (1959) – musical – director and choreographer – Polite Award for Best Choreography forward nominated for Best Direction unravel a Musical
• Wildcat (1960) – lilting – director, choreographer, and co-producer
• Subways Are For Sleeping (1961) – musical – director and choreographer – Tony Award Nomination result in Best Choreography
• Here's Love (1963) – musical – choreographer
• Ben Franklin curb Paris (1964) – musical – director and choreographer
• Skyscraper (1965) – musical – choreographer – Refined Award Nomination for Best Choreography
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966 – not ever officially opened) – musical – choreographer
• The Rothschilds (1970) – dulcet – director and choreographer – Tony Award Nominations for Outdistance Direction of a Musical plus Best Choreography
• Cyrano (1973) – dulcet – director and choreographer
• The Concerto Man (1980 revival) – lilting – director and choreographer
• The Arrivederci Girl (1993) – musical – director – Tony Award Verdict for Best Direction of tidy Musical

References

External links