Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins | |
---|---|
Born | Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz October 11, 1918 New York City, U.S. |
Died | July 29, 1998 New York City, U.S. | (aged 79)
Occupations |
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Years active | 1937–1998 |
Awards | Full list |
Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Among his numerous stage productions were
A documentary about Robbins's life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage, and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered on PBS in 2009 and won both an Emmy and a
Early life
Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway on Manhattan's Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants.[3] He was the son of Lena Robbins (née Rips) and Harry Rabinowitz (1887-1977).[4] He had an older sister, Sonia (1912-2004).[5][6][7]
The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th Street at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to those close to him, Robbins was given the middle name Wilson reflecting his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president, Woodrow Wilson.
In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. His father and uncle opened the Comfort Corset Company in nearby Union City. He graduated in 1935 from Woodrow Wilson High School (since renamed as Weehawken High School).[3] The family had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners. In the 1940s, their name was legally changed to Robbins.
Robbins began studying modern dance in high school with Alys [CK] Bentley, who encouraged her pupils to improvise steps to music. Said Robbins later: "What [she] gave me immediately was the absolute freedom to make up my own dances without inhibition or doubts." After graduation he went to study chemistry at
Career
1930s and 40s
In 1937 Robbins made the first of many appearances as a dancer at
In 1940, Robbins joined Ballet Theatre (later known as
During this period, Robbins created Fancy Free, a ballet with a screwball-comedy plot about sailors on leave that combined classical ballet with 1940s social dancing. He performed in it when it was presented at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre's 1944 season. He said that one of his inspirations for this ballet had been Paul Cadmus's 1934 painting The Fleet's In!, even though it was lighthearted, which the painting decidedly was not. Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor: "After seeing ... Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town." Robbins commissioned the score for the ballet from Leonard Bernstein, who was a relatively unknown composer at the time.[8] He also enlisted Oliver Smith as set designer.
Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed
While he was forging a career on Broadway, Robbins continued to work in ballet, creating a string of inventive and stylistically diverse ballets, including Interplay, which was set to a score by Morton Gould, and Facsimile, which was set to music by Leonard Bernstein and was banned in Boston [CK]. In 1949 Robbins left Ballet Theatre to join George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein's newly formed New York City Ballet as Associate Artistic Director. Soon after that he choreographed The Guests, a ballet about intolerance.
1950s
At New York City Ballet Robbins distinguished himself immediately as both dancer and choreographer. He was noted for his performances in Balanchine's 1929 "The Prodigal Son" (revived expressly for him), Til Eulenspiegel, and (with Tanaquil LeClercq) Bouree Fantasque, as well as for his own ballets, such as Age of Anxiety, The Cage, Afternoon of a Faun, and The Concert, in all of which LeClercq played leading roles. He continued working on Broadway, as well as, staging dances for Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman, Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, in which he created the celebrated "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet in addition to other dances, and the revue Two's Company, starring Bette Davis.
He also performed uncredited show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952), Wonderful Town (1953), and choreographed and directed several sketches for The Ford 50th Anniversary Show, starring Mary Martin and Ethel Merman on CBS.[11]
In 1954, Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, and created, choreographed, and directed the Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (which he re-staged for an Emmy Award-winning television special in 1955, earning himself a nomination for best choreography). He also directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. Robbins recreated his stage dances for The King and I for the 1956 film version. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed, and directed West Side Story.
West Side Story is a contemporary version of
The streak of hits continued with
In 1956 Robbins's muse,
House Un-American Activities Committee
In 1950, Robbins was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Robbins, though willing to confess to past party membership, resisted naming names of others with similar political connections; he held out for three years until, according to two family members in whom he confided, he was threatened with public exposure of his homosexuality.[13] Robbins named the names of persons he said were Communists, including actors Lloyd Gough and Elliot Sullivan, dance critic Edna Ocko, filmmaker Lionel Berman, playwright Jerome Chodorov, his brother Edward Chodorov, Madeline Lee Gilford and her husband Jack Gilford, who were blacklisted for their perceived political beliefs and had their careers suffer noticeably, to the point Gilford and his wife often had to borrow money from friends to make ends meet.[14] Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins's career did not visibly suffer and he was not blacklisted.[15]
1960s
In 1960, Robbins co-directed, with Robert Wise, the film adaptation of West Side Story. After about 45 days of shooting, he was fired when the production was considered 24 days behind schedule.[16] However, when the film received 10 Academy Awards for the 1961 award year, Robbins won two, one for his Direction and one for "Brilliant Achievements in the Art of Choreography on Film".
In 1962, Robbins directed Arthur Kopit's non-musical play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963, after which Robbins directed Anne Bancroft in a revival of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children.
Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into successes. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns, and John Carradine. The production, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and score by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Sondheim wrote and Robbins staged an entirely new opening number, "Comedy Tonight", which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played successfully from then on. In 1964, he took on a floundering Funny Girl and devised a show that ran 1348 performances. The musical helped turn lead Barbra Streisand into a superstar.
That same year, Robbins won
1970s and 1980s
He continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s. Robbins became ballet master of the New York City Ballet in 1972 and worked almost exclusively in classical dance throughout the next decade, pausing only to stage revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Fiddler on the Roof (1981). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.
The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as
1990s
Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994, in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of
Death
Robbins suffered a stroke in July 1998, two months after the premiere of his re-staging of Les Noces. He died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered on the Atlantic Ocean.
Personal life
Robbins had romantic relationships with a number of people, including Montgomery Clift, Nora Kaye, Buzz Miller, and Jess Gerstein. As a former Communist Party member, he named 10 communists in his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although he gave this testimony only after years of pressure, and threats to make public his sexual orientation, his naming names caused resentment among some of his artistic colleagues, including blacklisted actors Jack Gilford[17] and Zero Mostel, who, while working on Fiddler on the Roof "openly disdained Robbins".[18] Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents worked with him on West Side Story only a few years after they had been blacklisted.[19]
Awards
Robbins shared the Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for the film version of West Side Story (1961). Robbins was only the second director to win the Academy Award for Best Director for a film debut (after Delbert Mann for Marty). That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with a special Academy Honorary Award for his choreographic achievements on film.
In all, he was awarded with five
Jerome Robbins was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979.[20] Robbins was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame 10 years later, in 1989.
Jerome Robbins Award
In 1995, Jerome Robbins instructed the directors of his foundation to establish a prize for "some really greatly outstanding person or art institution. The prizes should "lean toward the arts of dance..." The first two Jerome Robbins Awards were bestowed in 2003 to New York City Ballet and to lighting designer Jennifer Tipton.[21]
Broadway productions and notable ballets
- 1939 Stars in Your Eyes – musical – performer in the role of "Gentleman of the Ballet"
- 1939 The Straw Hat Revue – revue – performer
- 1941 Giselle – ballet – dancer in the role of a "Peasant"
- 1941 Three Virgins and a Devil – ballet to the music of Ottorino Respighi, dancer in the role of the "Youth"
- 1941 Gala Performance – ballet to the music of Serge Prokofiev– dancer in the role of an "Attendant Cavalier"
- 1944 On the Town – musical – choreographer and the originator of the idea for the show
- 1945 Common Ground – play – co-director
- 1945 Interplay – ballet to the music of Morton Gould – choreographer and dancer
- 1945 Billion Dollar Baby – musical – choreographer
- 1946 Metropolitan Opera Housein 1944
- 1947 High Button Shoes – musical – choreographer – Tony Award for Best Choreography
- 1948 Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! – musical – choreographer, co-director, and the originator of the idea for the show
- 1949 Miss Liberty – musical – choreographer
- 1950 Call Me Madam – musical – choreographer
- 1951 The King and I – musical – choreographer
- 1951 The Cage – ballet to music of Igor Stravinsky – choreographer
- 1952 Interplay - ballet to music of Morton Gould – choreographer
- 1952 Two's Company – revue – choreographer
- 1953 Afternoon of a Faun – ballet to the music of Claude Debussy – choreographer
- 1954 The Pajama Game – musical – co-director
- 1954 Peter Pan – musical – director and choreographer
- 1956 The Concert (or the Perils of Everybody) – ballet to the music of Frédéric Chopin – choreographer
- 1956 Tonyco-Nominee for Best Choreography
- 1957 West Side Story – musical – choreographer, director – Tony Award for Best Choreography
- 1958 3 x 3 – ballet to the music of Georges Auric – choreographer
- 1958 New York Export: Opus Jazz – ballet to the music of Robert Prince, choreographer
- 1959 Gypsy– musical – choreographer and director – Tony Award Nomination for Best Direction of a Musical
- 1959 Moves – silent ballet – choreographer
- 1962 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – musical – uncredited directing and choreography assistant
- 1963 Mother Courage and Her Children – play – co-producer and director – Tony Award nomination for Best Play, and Best Producer of a Play
- 1963 Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad – play – director
- 1964 Funny Girl – musical – production supervisor
- 1964 Fiddler on the Roof – musical – director and choreographer – Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Choreography
- 1966 The Office – never officially opened – director
- 1969 Dances at a Gathering – ballet to the music of Frédéric Chopin – choreographer[22]
- 1970 In the Night – ballet to the music of Frédéric Chopin – choreographer
- 1971 The Goldberg Variations (ballet) - ballet to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach – choreographer
- 1979 The Four Seasons (ballet) - ballet to the music of Giuseppe Verdi[23] – choreographer
- 1975 In G Major (ballet) - ballet to the music of Maurice Ravel– choreographer
- 1983 I'm Old Fashioned – ballet to Morton Gould's adaptation of Jerome Kern's theme – choreographer
- 1983 Glass Pieces – ballet to the music of Philip Glass – choreographer
- 1989 Jerome Robbins' Broadway – revue – director and choreographer – Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical
Bibliography
- Lawrence, Greg (2001). Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins. G.P. Putnam's Sons. OCLC 45015298.
- Jowitt, Deborah (2005). Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86986-5.
- Vaill, Amanda (2006). Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins. Broadway. ISBN 978-0-7679-0420-9.
- Conrad, Christine (2001). Jerome Robbins: That Broadway Man, Booth-Clibborn ISBN 1-86154-173-2
- Emmet Long, Robert (2001). Broadway, the Golden Years: Jerome Robbins and the Great Choreographer Directors, 1940 to the Present. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8264-1462-1
- Altman, Richard (1971). The Making of a Musical: Fiddler on the Roof. Crown Publishers.
- Thelen, Lawrence (1999). The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre. Routledge.ISBN 0415923468
References
- ^ Fick, David (November 12, 2008). "Something to dance about: new Jerome Robbins documentary". Musical Cyberspace. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ 69th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2010.
- ^ a b Kisselgoff, Anna (July 30, 1998). "Jerome Robbins, 79, Is Dead; Giant of Ballet and Broadway". The New York Times. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ "Books". The New York Times.
- ^ "Sister of Jerome Robbins Dies at Fiddler's Opening Night". Playbill. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
- ^ Feb. 28, L. A. Times Archives; Pt, 2004 12 Am (February 28, 2004). "Jerome Robbins' sister, 91, dies". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
- ^ Paul R. Laird and David Schiff. "Bernstein, Leonard." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. August 14, 2014. Oxfordmusiconline.com
- ^ Green, Jesse (March 15, 2009). "When You're a Shark You're a Shark All the Way". New York. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ISBN 1-55783-244-7. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
At the end of the summer, on Gadget's return from Hollywood, we settled the roster of actors for our two classes in what we called the Actors Studio - using the word 'studio' as we had when we named our workshop in the Group, the Group Theatre Studio... My group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock, Jerome Robbins, Herbert Berghof, Tom Ewell, John Forsythe, Anne Jackson, Sidney Lumet, Kevin McCarthy, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, Patricia Neal, Beatrice Straight, David Wayne, and - well, I don't want to drop names, so I'll stop there. In all, there were about fifty.
- ISBN 0-452-25225-3.
- ^ Gihring, Tim; Scott, Gregory J. (July 2011). "July 2011 Arts Calendar". Minnesota Monthly. Greenspring Media Group Inc. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ Vaill, Amanda (January 27, 2009). "Jerome Robbins-About the Artist". American Masters. PBS. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ "Madeline Lee Gilford, 84, Actress and Activist - April 18, 2008 - The New York Sun". October 12, 2008. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008.
- ISBN 978-0767904216.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1921-4. Archived from the originalon August 3, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
- ^ "Jerome Robbins". masterworks broadway.com. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ^ "Actors recall living in fear of Jerome Robbins — yet dying to work with him". New York Post. July 27, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ^ "NPR". NPR.org. 2011.
- ^ "About Jerome Robbins: Awards & Honors". JeromeRobbins.org. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
- ^ "Jerome Robbins Award". Jerome Robbins Foundation. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
- ^ B, Peter (October 17, 2017). "NYCB Chronological history of repetory". nycballet.com.
- ^ "Jerome Robbins Catalog of Work: The Four Seasons". Jerome Robbins. Retrieved February 17, 2018.[permanent dead link]
Articles
- NY Times, August 9, 1998
- NY Times, Alan Riding, March 12, 1999
- NY Times, Alastair Macaulay, April 27, 2008[1]
- obituary, NY Times, Anna Kisselgoff, July 30, 1998[2]
External links
- Official website Jerome Robbins Foundation and Trust
- Jerome Robbins at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Jerome Robbins at the Internet Broadway Database
- Jerome Robbins at IMDb
- Floria Lasky files on Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.
- NYCB complete repertory. P, B. 2017