Michael Kidd

Michael Kidd, born Milton Greenwald on August 12, 1915, on the Lower East Side of New York City, was an American dancer, choreographer, and actor whose work shaped Broadway and Hollywood musicals across five decades. His parents, Abraham Greenwald, a barber, and his wife Lillian, were Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia. The family relocated to Brooklyn, where Kidd attended New Utrecht High School. His interest in dance was sparked by attending a modern dance performance, after which he studied under dancer and choreographer Blanche Evan. He enrolled in chemical engineering at the City College of New York in 1936 and 1937 before leaving to accept a scholarship to the School of American Ballet.

Kidd toured the United States as a corps de ballet member with Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan, taking on roles that included the lead in Billy the Kid, a work choreographed by Eugene Loring with an orchestral score by Aaron Copland. In 1941 he became a soloist and assistant to Loring in his Dance Players, and later joined Ballet Theater, which became known as the American Ballet Theatre. There he performed in Fancy Free, the 1944 ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, in which he played one of three sailors. While at the ABT he also created his own ballet, On Stage!, in 1945. The New York Times noted that Kidd was regarded as one of the great hopes of postwar American ballet, though he departed for Broadway in 1947 and did not return to ballet work. The stage name Kidd was adopted in 1942 when Ballet Caravan dancers were encouraged to take American names; he chose it because his older brother, a booking agent for the Concord Hotel in the Catskill Mountains, had always called him "the kid."

His Broadway performing career ran from 1939 to 1946 and included appearances in Fancy Free, Interplay, Billy the Kid, Miss Pocahontas, and The Devil and Daniel Webster. Kidd was strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine and became an innovator in the integrated musical, a form in which dance is woven directly into the narrative. His first Broadway choreography assignment was E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, a musical that examined racial prejudice, and the work earned him his first Tony Award. Two subsequent productions, Hold It and the Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner musical Love Life, directed by Elia Kazan, both had short runs in 1948. Arms and the Girl followed in 1950, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and featuring Pearl Bailey and Nanette Fabray, but it too was unsuccessful.

Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls, which opened in 1950 and was based on Damon Runyon short stories with a book by Abe Burrows, established Kidd's standing as a leading Broadway choreographer and brought him a second Tony Award. The production drew Hollywood's attention, and Kidd moved into film work. His first film assignment was a 1952 adaptation of Loesser's 1948 Broadway musical Where's Charley?, with Ray Bolger reprising his stage role. His first major film success came the following year with The Band Wagon, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, featuring music and lyrics by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz. Astaire personally requested Kidd for the project because of his apprehension about the ballet sequences. Kidd eased Astaire's concerns by presenting the choreography as if he were improvising the steps on the spot. The film included the extended closing "Girl Hunt Ballet," a parody of hard-boiled Mickey Spillane fiction featuring Astaire and Charisse, as well as "Shine on Your Shoes," set in a 42nd Street penny arcade with Astaire and real-life shoe-shiner LeRoy Daniels, and "Dancing in the Dark," with Charisse in Central Park.

Kidd's choreography for the 1954 MGM film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers brought him widespread acclaim. Directed by Stanley Donen with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, the film was written directly for the screen and based on Stephen Vincent Benét's short story "The Sobbin' Women," itself drawn from the ancient Roman legend of the Rape of the Sabine Women. Kidd initially declined the project, later recalling his skepticism about whether rough, uncouth backwoodsmen living in the woods would be credible as dancers. He ultimately agreed and insisted that all roles except those of Howard Keel and Jane Powell be filled by professional dancers, assembling a cast that included acrobats, stuntmen, and ballet dancers such as Jacques D'Amboise of the New York City Ballet and Marc Platt, formerly of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Mercer acknowledged that the musical numbers were written at Kidd's direction, citing as an example how Kidd described his conception of the "Lonesome Polecat" number before Mercer and de Paul developed the music and lyrics. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek described the barn-raising sequence as one of the most rousing dance numbers ever committed to film.

Simultaneously with his Hollywood work, Kidd continued choreographing for Broadway. While staging The Band Wagon, he was also creating dances for Cole Porter's Can-Can on Broadway, where his work for Gwen Verdon helped establish her as a major stage presence. During the mid-1950s he also directed and choreographed Li'l Abner, which opened in 1956 and earned him another Tony Award for choreography; he later adapted that choreography for the 1959 film version. He received Tony Awards for Best Choreography in 1954, 1957, and 1960, becoming the first choreographer to win five Tony Awards in total.

Kidd made his acting debut in the 1955 film It's Always Fair Weather, directed by Gene Kelly and Donen, in which he, Kelly, and Dan Dailey played three ex-GIs who reunite a decade after the war to find they have little in common. The film featured a number in which the three performers danced with garbage can lids strapped to their feet. Though critically well received, the film was not heavily promoted and failed at the box office. He served as both director and choreographer on the 1958 musical comedy film Merry Andrew, starring Danny Kaye. On Broadway he directed and choreographed Destry Rides Again in 1959. After Merry Andrew he did not return to film until Star!, with Julie Andrews, in 1968, a project that was not successful. In 1996 Kidd received an honorary Academy Award for his contributions to the advancement of dance in film. He died on December 23, 2007.