Jay Norman

Joshua Alden "Jay" Norman (March 20, 1937 – November 14, 2021) was a New York-born dancer, actor, and choreographer whose career spanned Broadway, film, television, and concert dance. He is most closely associated with West Side Story, in which he participated in the original Broadway production, national and international tours, and the 1961 film adaptation.

Norman was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx and the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. His father, Joshua Norman, was African American and originally from Henderson, North Carolina, and worked as a butcher before being drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. His mother, Olga, was a nurse whose own heritage was Native American on her mother's side and African American on her father's side. Her mother, Catheryne Holmes, was from Charles City, Virginia, and descended from families associated with the Upper Mattaponi and Chickahominy peoples. Olga's father, Alden Garland Kennedy, was African American, originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and had worked as an artist before becoming a lawyer. After his parents separated and later divorced, Norman spent a period at the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless in the Bronx, where he was known as Jay.

Norman had excelled in athletics, swimming, and basketball before his stepfather, who had a background in dancing and performed in nightclubs, persuaded him to take up dance as a means of developing his physique. Unable to afford formal classes, Norman learned of the School of Performing Arts through a friend and enrolled for his junior and senior years of high school, having previously attended vocational school with the intention of becoming an automotive engineer. At the School of Performing Arts he studied ballet with Robert Joffrey and developed an interest in dance history, rhythmic analysis, and dance composition.

His professional career began with a summer dancing in the chorus of eight musicals at a Pittsburgh summer theater. He subsequently taught ballet at the Blackburn Twins School of Dance in Great Neck, Long Island, and his growing interest in jazz led him to study with Frank Wagner, Matt Mattox, and Luigi. After a second summer in Pittsburgh, where he danced solos in The King and I and Kismet, Norman joined dancers Lenny Dale and Victor Duntiere for a six-month nightclub circuit tour in 1955.

Norman's major career breakthrough came in early 1957 when Jerome Robbins selected him from a large open audition for West Side Story. Cast as Juano, he was the youngest member of the original Broadway company and the first cast member to sustain an injury during the production's run, though he missed only one performance, during the Philadelphia engagement. Norman's Broadway career continued through the following decade, with credits including Baker Street in 1965, in which he appeared as Murillo, and The Apple Tree in 1966, in which he performed as an ensemble member and served as assistant choreographer. He also appeared in the musical The Concert, as well as additional Broadway productions including Kiss Me, Kate (1958 revival), Wildcat (1960), The King and I (1960), Donnybrook! (1961), Bajour (1964), Sweet Charity (1966), Zorba (1968), Dear World (1969, as assistant to the choreographer), Purlie (1970), and Ride the Winds (1974), for which he served as choreographer.

Alongside his Broadway work, Norman was a key member of Jerome Robbins' Ballets USA, participating in multiple European tours beginning in 1958. He appeared prominently in Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun and N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, and during the company's New York season danced in The Cage and Events, alternating roles originally created by Glen Tetley. In 1960, he understudied the role of Bernardo in West Side Story and assumed the part for ten days. He then joined the European tour of West Side Story in the role of Bernardo following seven months of filming the 1961 movie adaptation, in which he played Pepe, Bernardo's lieutenant and a member of the Sharks.

In April 1962, Norman performed at a White House State Dinner hosted by President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in honor of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and his wife, Farah Pahlavi. He danced with Wilma Curley in a piece from Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun and performed solo in N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, becoming the first male ballet soloist to perform at the White House. In a 1981 interview, Norman identified this performance as his proudest professional moment.

In March 1962, Norman began collaborating with Lee Becker on a jazz project that debuted at the First International Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C., and later appeared at the Boston Arts Festival. He remained associated with Becker's Jazz Ballet Theatre and taught jazz dance alongside her at the Igor Youskevitch School. Norman also appeared on television, including on The Arthur Godfrey Show and the French television program Âge Tendre et Tête de Bois in 1964.

In the early 1970s, Norman joined the New Jersey Ballet as a resident choreographer, working alongside George Tomal, with Norman responsible for jazz and modern ballet and Tomal for classical ballet. He continued choreographing for the New Jersey Ballet until the mid-1980s and by 1989 was engaged by the Coupe Dance Studios in Rockland County, New York, continuing there into the early 1990s.

Norman married fellow Ballets USA company member Gwenn Lewis in 1959. After leaving Coupe Dance Studios, he relocated to Ayden, North Carolina, and later moved to DeLand, Florida in 2000, where he lived until his death on November 14, 2021.