Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse was a world renowned theater director, choreographer, and an Academy Award winning film director. Known for his innovative choreography, Fosse blended the styles of Fred Astaire and Jack Cole to create a style of jazz dance that blended with old-fashioned music hall numbers.

Fast Facts

1. Date of Birth: June 23, 1927
2. Birth Name: Robert Louis Fosse
3. Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
4. Married three times
5. His third wife was Gwen Verdon
6. Won 8 Tony Awards and one Academy Award for Best Director
7. Died: September 23, 1987 of a heart attack

Early Life

The youngest of six children, Fosse grew up in Chicago and teamed up with Charles Grass as a dancing duo known as The Riff Brothers. From this, Fosse got hired to choreograph a show called Tough Situation which toured military bases in the Pacific. Being close to the west coast led Fosse to Hollywood where he began appearing in films as a dancer, but it was a choreographed sequence in Kiss Me, Kate that caught the attention of Broadway producers.

If I Can Make It Here

Fosse's fate pulled him to New York where he choreographed his first musical The Pajama Game in 1954. He soon developed a style of jazz dance that exuded sexuality and used a stylized look of hats, canes, and chairs. Fosse incorporated this style of dance in Sweet Charity and Cabaret. By the the late 1960s Fosse returned to films, but behind the camera. He directed five feature films including Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny and his semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz, which earned Fosse his third Oscar nomination.

Quotes

Fosse believed that.."The time to sing is when your emotional level is too high to just speak anymore, and the time to dance is when your emotions are just too strong to only sing about how you feel.”

Categories