Bob Fosse

His career began as an actor in the musical productions Call Me Mister (1947), Billion Dollar Baby (1951), and Pal Joey (1952). He transitioned into directing and choreographing musical works, winning Tony Awards for choreographing The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), Redhead (1959), Little Me (1963), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), Dancin' (1978), and Big Deal (1986), and for directing Pippin. He worked on Bells Are Ringing (1956), New Girl in Town (1958), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), and Chicago (1975). In film, he played Hortensio in the MGM musical Kiss Me Kate (1953) and his directorial debut was in the musical Sweet Charity (1969). He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the musical drama Cabaret (1972). He was Oscar-nominated for directing the dramas Lenny (1974) and All That Jazz (1979), the latter of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He directed the concert film Liza with a Z (1972), which earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, and his final film is Star 80 (1983). Fosse forged an uncompromising modern style, characterized by finger-snapping, tilted bowler hats, fishnet stockings, splayed gloved fingers, turned-in knees and toes, shoulder rolls, and jazz hands. His third wife was the actor–dancer Gwen Verdon, with whom he collaborated on several theater and film projects.

Bob Fosse studied at Amundsen High School. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are musical play. Works named in the authority record are Cabaret, Lenny and All That Jazz. Distinctions recorded are Emmy Award, Academy Award for Best Director, Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and Capezio Dance Award.

Robert Louis Fosse was born in Uptown, Chicago, Illinois, on June 23, 1927, to Norwegian-American father Cyril Kingsley Fosse, a traveling salesman for Hershey, and Irish-American mother Sarah Alice "Sadie" (née Stanton) Fosse. He was the fifth of six children. He was named after the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. He was drawn to dance, and his parents supported his interest, enrolling him in formal dance lessons at the age of eight at the Chicago Academy of Theatre Arts, where he trained under Marguerite Comerford. When he was 13 years old, Fosse performed professionally in Chicago with Charles Grass as "The Riff Brothers". They toured vaudeville and movie houses in Chicago, as well as USO theaters and Eagles Clubs. Many of these performances included shows at burlesque clubs such as the Silver Cloud and Cave of Winds. Fosse himself is quoted with saying, "I was sixteen years old, and I played the whole burlesque wheel." Much of the erotica he saw would inspire his future work. In 1943 at the age of 15, Fosse would come to choreograph his first dance number and earn his first full credit as a choreographer in a film, Hold Evry'thing! A Streamlined Extravaganza in Two Parts, which featured showgirls wearing strapless dresses and performing a fan dance, inspired by his time in burlesque houses. After graduating from Amundsen High School in 1945, Fosse was recruited into the U.S. Navy toward the end of World War II at Naval Station Great Lakes, where he was sent to be prepared for combat. Fosse petitioned his manager, Frederick Weaver, to advocate on his behalf to his superiors after his own failed attempts to be placed in the Special Services Entertainment Division. Fosse was soon placed in the variety show Tough Situation, which toured military and naval bases in the Pacific Ocean.

After his discharge, Fosse moved to New York City in 1947 with the ambition of being the new Fred Astaire. He began to study acting at the American Theatre Wing, where he met his first wife and dance partner, Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987). His first stage role was in Call Me Mister, along with Niles. In 1948 Tony Charmoli danced in Make Mine Manhattan but gave the part to Fosse when the show toured nationally. Charmoli also found Fosse work as a dancer on the TV shows he was working on when Fosse returned from the tour. Fosse and Niles were regular performers on Your Hit Parade in its 1950–1951 season. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis saw their act in New York's Pierre Hotel and scheduled the couple to appear on The Colgate Comedy Hour in 1951. Fosse was signed to an MGM contract in 1953. His early screen appearances as a dancer included Give a Girl a Break, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, and Kiss Me Kate, all released in 1953. Fosse's choreography of a short dance sequence during From This Moment On in Kiss Me Kate and his dance with Carol Haney brought him to the attention of Broadway producers. In Kiss Me Kate, Fosse starred alongside Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, and Ann Miller. Fosse played Hortensio within The Taming of the Shrew dance sequences.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fosse transitioned from film to theatre. Fosse told an interviewer, "Jerry [Jerome Robbins] started me doing choreography. He gave me my first job as a choreographer [Pajama Game] and I'm grateful for that." In 1954 Fosse choreographed his first stage musical, The Pajama Game, followed by My Sister Eileen and George Abbott's Damn Yankees in 1955. It was during Damn Yankees when he first met rising star Gwen Verdon, whom he married in 1960. For her work in Damn Yankees in 1956 Verdon won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She had previously won a Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Can-Can (1954). In 1957 Fosse choreographed New Girl in Town, also directed by Abbott, and Verdon won her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1958. Also in 1957 Fosse choreographed the film version of The Pajama Game, starring Doris Day. The next year, Fosse appeared in and choreographed the film version of Damn Yankees, in which Verdon reprised her stage triumph as the character Lola. Fosse and Verdon were partners in the mambo number "Who's Got the Pain". In 1959 Fosse directed and choreographed the stage musical Redhead. For his work on Redhead Fosse won the Tony Award for Best Choreography, while Verdon won her third Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Redhead also won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Fosse's next feature was supposed to be the musical The Conquering Hero, based on a book by Larry Gelbart, but he was replaced as director/choreographer. In 1961 Fosse choreographed the satirical Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, starring Robert Morse. The story revolves around an ambitious man, J. Pierrepont Finch (Morse), who, with the help of the book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, rises from window washer to chairman of the board of the World Wide Wicket Company. The musical was an instant hit. In 1963 Fosse was nominated for two Tony Awards, Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical for Little Me, winning the former. He choreographed and directed Verdon in Sweet Charity in 1966.

Fosse's final film, Star 80 (1983), is a biographical movie, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning article, about Dorothy Stratten, a Playboy Playmate who was murdered. The film was screened out of competition at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival. Critic Roger Ebert in his four-star review of the film wrote, "Although his Broadway musicals have been upbeat entertainments, he seems to see the movie camera as a device for peering into our shames and secrets...This is an important movie. Devastating, violent, hopeless, and important, because it holds a mirror up to a part of the world we live in and helps us see it more clearly." In 1986 Fosse wrote, choreographed, and directed the Broadway production of Big Deal, which was nominated for five Tony awards, winning for Best Choreography, as well as five more for the revival of Sweet Charity at the nearby Minskoff Theater, winning a Tony Award for Best Revival. Fosse began work on a film about gossip columnist Walter Winchell that would have starred Robert De Niro. The Winchell script was written by Michael Herr. Fosse died before starting the project.

Distinctions of Fosse's style include the use of turned-in knees, the "Fosse Amoeba", sideways shuffling, rolled shoulders, and jazz hands. With Astaire as an influence, Fosse used props such as bowler hats, canes, and chairs. His trademark use of hats was also influenced by his own self-consciousness, according to Martin Gottfried in his biography of Fosse: "His baldness was the reason that he wore hats, and was doubtless why he put hats on his dancers." Fosse used gloves in his performances because he did not like his hands. Some of his most popular numbers include "Steam Heat" (The Pajama Game) and "Big Spender" (Sweet Charity). The "Rich Man's Frug" scene in Sweet Charity is another example of his signature style. For Damn Yankees, Fosse was inspired by the "father of theatrical jazz dance", Jack Cole. In 1957 Verdon and Fosse studied with Sanford Meisner to develop a better acting technique. According to Michael Joosten, Fosse once said: "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.'" In Redhead, Fosse used one of the first ballet sequences in a show that contained five different styles of dance: Fosse's jazz, a cancan, a gypsy dance, a march, and an old-fashioned English music hall number. During Pippin, Fosse made the first television commercial for a Broadway show.

Fosse married dance partner Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987) on May 3, 1947, in Detroit. In 1952, a year after he divorced Niles, he married dancer Joan McCracken in New York City; they divorced in 1959. His third wife was dancer and actress Gwen Verdon, whom he met choreographing Damn Yankees, in which she starred. In 1963 they had a daughter, Nicole Fosse, who later became a dancer and actress. Fosse's extramarital affairs put a strain on the marriage and by 1971 they were separated, although they remained legally married until his death in 1987. Verdon never remarried. During their joint career, Fosse would continually take blame from critics while Gwen Verdon would get praise, no matter how much influence Verdon had on a production. However, Verdon always looked out for him and the Fosse family image, hosting grandiose cast parties and being Fosse's personal press secretary throughout their marriage. Fosse met dancer Ann Reinking during the run of Pippin in 1972. According to Reinking, their romantic relationship ended "toward the end of the run of Dancin'" (1978). Reinking acted in his musical drama film All That Jazz, which was loosely based on Fosse's life. Fosse also dated actresses Jessica Lange and Dyan Cannon.

In 1961 Fosse's epilepsy was revealed when he had a seizure onstage during rehearsals for The Conquering Hero. Fosse's time outside of the rehearsal studio or theater was seldom spent alone. As stated in the biography Fosse by Sam Wasson, "nights alone were murder on Fosse". To alleviate loneliness and insomnia brought on by his prescribed amphetamines, Fosse would often contact dancers he would work with and try to date them, making it hard for many to refuse his advances, but also giving him the affirmation of success he sought.

Fosse died of a heart attack on September 23, 1987, at George Washington University Hospital while the revival of Sweet Charity was opening at the nearby National Theatre. He had collapsed in Verdon's arms near the Willard Hotel. As he had requested, Verdon and Nicole Fosse scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Quogue, Long Island, where Fosse had been living with his girlfriend of four years. A month after his death, Verdon fulfilled Fosse's request for his friends to "go out and have dinner on me" by hosting a star-studded, celebrity-filled evening at Tavern on the Green with Verdon, Reinking, Jessica Lange, Roy Scheider, Ben Vereen, and E. L. Doctorow attending.