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Member Number: 8616
Jerome Robbins (October 11, 1918 - July 29, 1998) was an American choreographer whose work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater. Among the numerous stage productions he worked on were On The Town, High Button Shoes, The King And I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy: A Musical Fable and Fiddler on the Roof.
Youth
Robbins was born "Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz" on October 11, 1918, exactly one month before the end of World War I, in the Jewish Maternity Hospital in the heart of Manhattan’s Lower East side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. His parents, Lena and Harry Rabinowitz, favored a Jewish hospital because it provided kosher food and Yiddish-speaking doctors. “Jerry” to loved ones, his middle name reflected his parent’s patriotic enthusiasm for the current president. Rabinowitz translates to “the son of a rabbi” - a name Robbins never liked, as it marked him as the son of an immigrant.
In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. 10 years prior, Fred and Adele Astaire had lived there briefly as children only a block away from one of Robbins’ boyhood homes. His father and uncle opened “Comfort Corset Company,” and this was a unique venture, especially in the family, which had many show business connections including vaudeville performers and theater owners. Robbins, however, was headed away from business and into the arts.
He began college studying Chemistry at New York University (NYU), but dropped out after a year for financial reasons, as well as to pursue dance. He studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet with Ella Daganova, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring, modern dance at the New Dance League, Spanish dancing with the famed Helen Veola, folk dance with Yeichi Nimura, and dance composition with Bessie Schoenberg.
Career
For much of his life, Robbins pursued a career in both ballet and Broadway theatre. Robbins lived in a world of like-minded collaborators, most of whom were his age, Jewish, New Yorkers, leftist and -- among males -- gay.
1930's and 40's
By 1939, he was dancing in the chorus of such Broadway shows as Great Lady, The Straw Hat Revue and Keep off the Grass, which George Balanchine choreographed. Robbins was also dancing and choreographing at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Here he choreographed many dramatic pieces with controversial ideas about race wars, lynching, and war. But in 1940, he turned his back (albeit temporarily) on the theater and joined the Ballet Theatre (later known as the American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the Moor in Petrouchka and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet.
At the same time, Broadway dance was changing. Agnes de Mille had brought not just ballet to Oklahoma!, but had made dance an integral part of the drama of the musical piece. Challenged, Robbins choreographed and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors at liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. The inspiration for Fancy Free came from Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting called [The Fleet's In!] which is part of the Sailor Trilogy. Robbins was suggested to do a ballet based on the art work by his friend Mary Hunter Wolf. To distance himself from the controversial homosexual content, 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."
He went on to say
"I wanted to show that the boys in the service are healthy, vital boys: there is nothing sordid or morbid about them".
Oliver Smith, set designer and collaborator on Fancy Free, knew Leonard Bernstein and eventually Robbins and Bernstein met to work on the music. This would be the first of several collaborative efforts. Fancy Free was a great success.
Later that year, he conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Once again Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His next musical was Billion Dollar Baby (1945). Two years later, he received plaudits for his hilarious Keystone Kops ballet in High Button Shoes.
1950's
During this period, Robbins continued to create dances for the Ballet Theatre, alternating between the two for the better part of the next two decades. Barely a year went by without a new Robbins ballet and a new musical choreographed by Robbins. With George Balanchine he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.
In 1951, Robbins created the now-celebrated dance sequences in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King & I (including the March of the Siamese Children, the ballet The Small House of Uncle Thomas and the "Shall We Dance?" polka between the two leads). That same year, he created The Cage for the New York City Ballet, with which he was now associated. He also did uncredited show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952) and Wonderful Town (1953).
Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, worked on the 1955 Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (recreated for the small screen in 1955, 1956 and 1960) and directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed and directed a show that some feel is his crowning achievement: West Side Story.
West Side Story is a modern-day (for 1957) version of Romeo and Juliet, set in Hell's Kitchen. The musical marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics. The two, along with book writer Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein, worked well together, only disagreeing on minor issues such as whether the lead character Maria should die. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. The original Broadway production featured Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita. Although it opened to good reviews, it was overshadowed by Meredith Willson's The Music Man at that year's Tony Awards. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography, and is now hailed as a groundbreaking classic.
The streak of hits continued with Gypsy (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Robbins re-teamed with Sondheim and Laurents, and the music was by Jule Styne. The musical is based--loosely--on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
House Un-American Activities Committee
While Robbins' career seemed to be a charmed one, it was not without a period of difficulty. In the early 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Robbins named names along with Sterling Hayden, Burl Ives, Elia Kazan and Lela Rogers (Ginger's mother). Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins' career did not suffer and he was not blacklisted.
1960's
In 1962, Robbins tried his hand at a straight play, directing Arthur Kopit's unconventional Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama'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,
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 smashes. 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 songs by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Robbins staged an entirely new opening number which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played beautifully 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 matching Tony Awards for his direction and choreography in Fiddler on the Roof (1964). The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway musical. The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, is based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. The subject matter allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots.
1970's and 80's
Never deserting the ballet, 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 (198). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.
The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired Live From Studio 8H: An Evening of Jerome Robbins' Ballets with Members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins' choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. The latter led to his creating the anthology show Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989 which recreated the most successful production numbers from his 50-plus year career. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator, the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. For his efforts, he earned a fifth Tony Award.
Death
Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994; in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of Parkinson’s disease and his hearing was quickly getting worse. However, he insisted on staging Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998. It was the last thing he did. He suffered a massive stroke two months later, and 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. In the more than sixty years in which he had been active in the theater, he had transformed it.
AccomplishmentsNotable awards
On screen, Robbins recreated his stage dances for The King and I (1956) and shared the Best Director Oscar with Robert Wise for the film version of West Side Story (1961). That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with a special award for his choreographic achievements on film. By the end of his life in 1998, he would be awarded 5 Tony Awards, 2 Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of the Arts, the French Legion of Honor, three Honorary Doctorates, and an Honorary Membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
LinksOther
Work on Broadway
- Stars In Your Eyes (1939) - musical - performer in the role of "Gentleman of the Ballet"
- The Straw Hat Revue (1939) - revue - performer
- Giselle (1941) - ballet - dancer in the role of a "Peasant"
- Three Virgins and a Devil (1941) - ballet to the music of Respighi, dancer in the role of the "Youth" (see above photograph)
- Gala Performance (1941) - ballet to the music of Prokofiev - dancer in the role of an "Attendant Cavalier"
- On the Town (1944) - musical - choreographer the originator of the idea for the show
- Common Ground (1945) - play - co-director
- Interplay (1945) - ballet to the music of Morton Gould - choreographer and dancer
- Billion Dollar Baby (1945) - musical - choreographer
- Fancy Free (1946) - ballet (revival - original played at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1944) - choreographer
- High Button Shoes (1947) - musical - choreographer - Tony Award for Best Choreography
- Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! (1948) - musical - choreographer, co-director, and the originator of the idea for the show
- Miss Liberty (1949) - musical - choreographer
- Call Me Madam (1950) - musical - choreographer
- The King and I (1951) - musical - choreographer
- Two's Company (1952) - revue - choreographer
- The Pajama Game (1954) - musical - co-director
- Peter Pan (1954) - musical - director and choreographer
- Bells Are Ringing (1956) - musical - director and co-choreographer with Bob Fosse - Tony co-Nominee for Best Choreography
- West Side Story (1957) - musical - choreographer, director, and the originator of the idea for the show - Tony Award for Best Choreography
- The Concert or The Perils of Everybody (1958) - ballet to the music of Frédéric Chopin - choreographer
- Afternoon of a Faun (1958) - ballet to the music of Claude Debussy - choreographer
- 3 x 3 (1958) - ballet to the music of Georges Auric - choreographer
- New York Export: Opus Jazz (1958) - ballet to the music of Robert Prince, choreographer
- Gypsy (1959) - musical - choreographer and director - Tony Nomination for Best Direction of a Musical
- Moves (1961) - silent ballet - choreographer
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) - musical - uncredit directing and choreography assistant
- Mother Courage and Her Children (1963) - play - co-producer and director - Tony Nominations for Best Play and Best Producer of a Play
- Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad (1963) - play - director
- Funny Girl (1964) - musical - production supervisor
- Fiddler on the Roof (1964) - musical - director and choreographer - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, Tony Award for Best Choreography
- The Office (1966 - never officially opened) - director
- Jerome Robbins' Broadway (1989) - revue - director and choreographer - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical
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