Buzz Miller

Vernal "Buzz" Miller (December 23, 1923 – February 23, 1999) was an American dancer whose career spanned Broadway, Hollywood film, television, ballet, and modern dance. Born in Snowflake, Arizona, a small town in Navajo County founded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he grew up with three brothers and two sisters and attended local schools. Following his high school graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served two years on active duty during World War II as a front lines messenger, sustaining a combat injury that led to his honorable discharge.

Miller came to dance relatively late. In 1947, at the age of 23, he began studying with Croatian ballerina Mia Slavenska in Hollywood, California. Within nine months he had secured his first professional engagement, touring nightclubs and cabarets in London and Paris with Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers, and subsequently performing across the United States with the Jack Cole Dancers. His early exposure to Cole's jazz-based movement vocabulary shaped the technical foundation he would bring to his Broadway work.

His first Broadway credit came in 1947 with Magdalena: A Musical Adventure, a Brazilian folk operetta featuring music by Heitor Villa-Lobos and choreography by Jack Cole. He returned to Broadway in 1952 with Two's Company, a musical revue starring Bette Davis with music by Vernon Duke and lyrics by Ogden Nash, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, where Miller received featured billing alongside Nora Kaye and Maria Karnilova. The following year he appeared in two productions: Me and Juliet, the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical in which he partnered Joan McCracken in the act one number "Keep It Gay," and a revival of Pal Joey, the Rodgers and Hart show choreographed by Robert Alton, which also featured Harold Lang, Helen Gallagher, Elaine Stritch, and Bob Fosse.

Miller's association with Fosse deepened considerably with The Pajama Game in 1954, a musical with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, directed by George Abbott and Jerome Robbins and choreographed by Fosse. Miller performed alongside Carol Haney and Peter Gennaro in "Steam Heat," a dance number that regularly stopped the show with applause. He reprised his role when the production was adapted into a Hollywood film in 1957, with Doris Day and John Raitt in the leading parts. In 1956 he appeared in Bells Are Ringing, with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne, directed and choreographed by Fosse and Jerome Robbins. Miller played Carl, a friend to Judy Holliday's lovelorn telephone operator character, and partnered her in "Mu-cha-cha," the number opening act two.

His Broadway work continued with Redhead in 1959, a murder-mystery musical set in Victorian London with music and lyrics by Albert Hague and Dorothy Fields, directed and choreographed by Fosse and Donald McKayle, and created as a vehicle for Gwen Verdon. Miller, cast as the Jailer, partnered Verdon in the "Pick-Pocket Tango." In 1962 he appeared in Bravo Giovanni, a musical built around opera star Cesare Siepi, with music by Milton Schafer and choreography by Carol Haney and Miller himself. He danced with Maria Karnilova in a production number called "The Kangaroo." The following year he was in Hot Spot, a musical with music by Mary Rodgers and staging by Herbert Ross, in which he danced with Carmen de Lavallade. His final Broadway credit in this period was Funny Girl in 1964, the blockbuster starring Barbra Streisand as comedienne Fanny Brice, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill and choreography by Carol Haney and Jerome Robbins. Miller danced with Streisand and the chorus in "Cornet Man," the sixth scene of act one.

Beyond Broadway, Miller appeared in several Hollywood films, among them On the Riviera (1951), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Anything Goes (1956), and Justine (1969). He was also a frequent presence on American television, with appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Camera Three, and The Arthur Godfrey Show.

His career extended into the concert dance world with equal distinction. In 1955 and 1956 he served as a guest artist with Roland Petit's Ballets de Paris, taking a leading role opposite Zizi Jeanmaire in La Chambre, a detective-story ballet with a scenario by Georges Simenon, and a featured role in Les Belles Damnées alongside Violette Verdy. In 1957 he participated in the inaugural Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, representing contemporary American performing arts. During the 1960s, modern dance choreographer John Butler cast Miller in two works: Portrait of Billie (1961), inspired by the life of Billie Holiday, and Catulli Carmina (1964), in which Miller originated the role of Caelius and later performed the principal role of the Roman poet Catullus. Both works featured Carmen de Lavallade as his partner.

Miller also contributed to the theater as a choreographer and director. In 1968 he choreographed and associate directed Julie Bovasso's The Moon Dreamers at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. He continued as associate director for Bovasso's productions at La MaMa in 1971, 1974, and 1975, which included Schubert's Last Serenade and Monday on the Way to Mercury Island (1971), The Nothing Kid and Standard Safety (1974), and Schubert's Last Serenade, The Final Analysis, and The Super Lover (1975).

In 1978, Miller became a founding member of the American Dance Machine, an organization dedicated to preserving significant dance numbers from Broadway and television. Among his contributions there was the restaging of Carol Haney's choreography for "Me and My Girl," originally presented on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962. He also taught master classes in jazz dance at universities across the United States.

Miller had a five-year relationship with Jerome Robbins during the 1950s. In 1957 he met Alan Groh, and the two remained together for approximately thirty years until Groh's death in 1996. Miller died of emphysema in Manhattan on February 23, 1999, at the age of 76. His papers and archives are held in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.