Bob Fosse - IMDb IMDb Miscellaneous Crew | Soundtrack | Actor Bob Fosse was born on June 23, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Robert Louis Fosse. He is known for his work on All That Jazz (1979), Cabaret (1972) and Chicago (2002). He was married to Gwen Verdon , Joan McCracken and Mary Ann Niles . He died on September 23, 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. See full bio » Born: a list of 28 people created 15 Jun 2012 a list of 25 people created 30 Jun 2012 a list of 39 people created 09 Aug 2012 a list of 24 people created 26 Jul 2014 a list of 39 people created 7 months ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Bob Fosse's work have you seen? User Polls Won 1 Oscar. Another 13 wins & 10 nominations.

See more awards » Known For - From Broadway: Fosse (2001) ... (choreographer: original) 1981 Pippin: His Life and Times (TV Movie) (choreographer) / (choreographer: original New York production) / (stage director: original New York production) 1972 Liza with a Z (TV Special) (choreographer) 1972 Cabaret (dances staged by) 1961 The Seasons of Youth (TV Movie) (choreographer) 1959 Startime (TV Series) (choreographer - 1 episode) - Top 18 Perform, 2 Eliminated (2014) ... (writer: "Sing Sing Sing" (Part 2)) 1985 That's Dancing! (Documentary) (performer: "Tom, Dick or Harry") 1962 The Garry Moore Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #4.33 (1962) ... (performer: "I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man" - uncredited) 1958 Damn Yankees!

(performer: "Who's Got the Pain") 1955 My Sister Eileen ("There's Nothin' Like Love") / (performer: "Competition Dance" (instrumental), "Give Me A Band And My Baby") 1953 Give a Girl a Break (performer: "In our United State", "Nothing Is Impossible") 1953 Kiss Me Kate (performer: "Tom, Dick or Harry", "From This Moment On" - uncredited) 1972 Academy Awards® Winners and History "The Godfather" Supporting Actress: EILEEN HECKART in "Butterflies Are Free", Jeannie Berlin in "The Heartbreak Kid", Geraldine Page in "Pete 'n' Tillie", Susan Tyrrell in "Fat City", Shelley Winters in "The Poseidon Adventure" Director: BOB FOSSE for "Cabaret", John Boorman for "Deliverance" , Francis Ford Coppola for "The Godfather" , Joseph L.

Mankiewicz for "Sleuth", Jan Troell for "The Emigrants" There was a tremendous incongruity in the 1972 awards between the top two, front-running films: The Godfather (with ten nominations and only three wins) - Best Picture for producer Albert S. Ruddy, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Screenplay Adaptation (for Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant re-working of Puzo's novel). Paramount's The Godfather told the epic story of the patriarchal, aging figurehead of a 'Mafia' dynasty who also served as 'godfather' to the New York Sicilian immigrants in the late 1940s - one of The Godfather's eleven nominations was removed, Best Music (Original Dramatic Score), when it was determined that Nino Rota's score had been used for a previous film Cabaret (with ten nominations and eight wins) - this film won many more Oscars - but not Best Picture.

Cabaret's Oscars were for Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Grey), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, Best Sound, and Best Scoring. It was a real surprise that The Godfather lost both the Best Director and Best Supporting Actor awards to Cabaret [Cabaret set a record - it had the most Oscar wins of any film without winning the Best Picture award.

A Place in the Sun (1951) and Star Wars (1977) hold second place with six Oscar wins while failing to win Best Picture.] The classic musical-drama that revised the Broadway stage musical Cabaret (based on John Kander's hit musical taken from the Christopher Isherwood stories) was set in 1931 Germany - it used the cabaret night-club in Berlin as a cinematic device to tell the story of two young lovers and the political horrors of the encroaching, surrounding Nazi regime in the pre-World War II era The other three Best Picture nominees included: the English-dubbed The Emigrants (with four nominations and no wins) - the sad tale of impoverished farmers leaving Sweden in the mid 1880s to come to Minnesota for the promise of a better life in America. [The film was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award in 1971. It was the third non-English language film to be nominated for Best Picture.

It also set a record - 1972 was the only year in which a film, The Emigrants (1972) (a Best Picture nominee) and its sequel, The New Land (1972) (Best Foreign Language film nominee) were both nominated] director Martin Ritt's film of William Armstrong's adapted novel, Sounder (with four nominations and no wins) about the struggles of a rural, black sharecropper family in Depression-era Louisiana the exciting action film based on James Dickey's novel, Deliverance (with the fewest number of nominations - only three - and no wins) about a horrific, holiday weekend canoe trip down a southern river for four civilized professional men from Atlanta, who discover primal fear and alienation - and most remembered for its "Dueling Banjos" sequence. Four of the five directors of Best Picture nominees were also nominated for Best Director. The director of Best Picture-nominated Sounder was replaced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who was nominated as director for Sleuth (with four nominations and no wins).

Mankiewicz' last directed film, an adaptation of Anthony Shaffer's Tony-winning 1970 drama, was an intelligent, twisting, theatrical stage play/mystery and actor's showcase brought to the screen, a rivalry between a wealthy mystery novelist and his wife's hairdresser/lover, his romantic rival. Dancer/choreographer/ and director Bob Fosse (with his first of three career nominations) won the Best Director Oscar (his only Best Director win) for his exquisitely-directed Cabaret - it was his second film as director following his first musical Sweet Charity (1969). His film updated the Kurt Weill-Brecht world of The Threepenny Opera (and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel), as well as borrowed from Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

[As an interesting sidenote, Bob Fosse would be nominated two more times as Best Director - in 1974 (for Lenny) and 1979 (for All That Jazz), and both times, Fosse found himself in direct competition against the same Best Director nominee Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather, Part II (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979) ).] The other nominated directors were: John Boorman (with his first of two unsuccessful nominations) for his gripping, breath-taking direction of the shockingly-violent Deliverance Jan Troell for the first part of a two-part epic, The Emigrants (followed by The New Land) Francis Ford Coppola, a representative of the next generation of movie-makers, failed to win in the Best Director category. His three-hour Best Picture epic The Godfather skillfully and artfully brought Mario Puzo's novel to life. One of the film's most oft-quoted lines was: "Luca Brazzi sleeps with the fishes" -- referring to the fate of one of the Corleone family enforcers.

[The film soon became the biggest box-office hit of all time, even surpassing Gone With The Wind (1939) and The Sound of Music (1965) .] For the first time in Academy history, three of the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees were black performers - Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson in Sounder, and Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues. (However, none of the trio of black 'actors' won.) Marlon Brando (with his sixth of eight career nominations) won his second Best Actor Oscar for his definitive screen role as the aged 'Mafia' chief Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather . [Robert DeNiro won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar two years later for playing the same character in a different film - The Godfather, Part II (1974) .] As George C. Scott had done two years earlier, Brando protested the on/off-screen treatment of Native Americans (through alleged American Indian spokeswoman and half native-American Sacheen Littlefeather, president of the Native American Affirmative Image Committee, who was dressed in feathers and buckskin) and declined the award.

[Note: Her birth name was Maria Cruz, a B-film Mexican actress, and she had been named Miss American Vampire 1970. And she would soon afterwards appear in a pictorial in the October 1973 issue of Playboy Magazine.] The two major cast members of Sleuth were also nominated for Best Actor awards: Laurence Olivier (with his eighth of ten career nominations) as the snobbish detective-mystery novelist Andrew Wyke Michael Caine (with his second nomination) as his game-playing adversary Milo Tindle - a hair-salon chain owner who is having an affair with Wyke's estranged wife. [This is only one of three instances when a film's entire cast has been nominated - the other instances were Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Give 'em Hell, Harry!

(1975).] Other Best Actor nominees were: Peter O'Toole (with his fifth of eight career nominations) as Jack - the insane 14th Earl of Gurney who believes he's either Jesus Christ or Jack the Ripper in director Peter Medak's satirical, British tragi-comedy cult film, The Ruling Class (the film's sole nomination) Paul Winfield (with his sole nomination) as black sharecropper Nathan Lee Morgan (Cicely Tyson's husband) who is sentenced to jail for stealing food for his family in Sounder Liza Minnelli (with her second and last career nomination) in her fourth adult film role won the Best Actress award for her star-making role in Cabaret as the free-spirited ex-patriate American Sally Bowles - a wild, starry-eyed and 'divinely decadent' singer/dancer in the Kit Kat Club, made memorable with a black bowler, mascara, and suspenders. Some interpreted her win as 'compensation' for the many Oscar losses that her mother, Judy Garland, experienced.

The other Best Actress competitors included two black actresses (a first): Cicely Tyson (with her sole nomination) as sharecropper Rebecca Morgan in Sounder Diana Ross (with her sole nomination for her screen debut) as drug-addicted singing great Billie Holliday in director Sidney Furie's biopic Lady Sings the Blues (with five nominations and no wins) Also nominated were Maggie Smith (with her third nomination) as overbearing Aunt Augusta who travels across Europe in George Cukor's screen version of Graham Greene's comedy novel Travels With My Aunt (with four nominations and one win - Best Costume Design), and Liv Ullmann (with her first of two unsuccessful career nominations) as Swedish emigrant Kristina in The Emigrants. Both winners in the supporting categories were repeating their stage roles on the screen. The winner in the Best Supporting Actor category was the sinister, lewd, sexually-ambiguous and androgynous, sardonic, untrustworthy and impish emcee Joel Grey (with his sole career nomination!) as 'The Master of Ceremonies' in Cabaret - a personification of the decadence and decay in Nazi Germany.

[Grey was reprising his Broadway role in his first film in eleven years.] Three of the co-stars of The Godfather were also nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category - all of them for the first time. [This was record-tying! - this was the first time since On The Waterfront (1954) that three performers from the same film were nominated together]: James Caan (with his first and sole nomination in a break-through role) as the Don's hot-headed, sexy and volatile son Sonny Corleone Al Pacino (with his first of eight career nominations and in his first major film) as intense Michael Corleone - the second son [Coincidentally, Pacino had more on-screen time than Best Actor winner Marlon Brando, and should have been nominated in the Best Actor category instead.] Robert Duvall (with his first of five career nominations and in his break-through role) as Tom Hagen, the Corleone's family's lawyer The last nominee was Eddie Albert (with his second and last unsuccessful career nomination) as Mr.

Corcoran (Cybill Shepherd's father) in director Elaine May's version of Neil Simon's marital comedy, The Heartbreak Kid (with two nominations and no wins). The Best Supporting Actress category included nominees in films which were not major prize winners. The winner in the category was veteran Broadway actress Eileen Heckart (with her second of two career nominations) who recreated her stage role as Mrs. Baker - the concerned, over-possessive, domineering and overbearing San Francisco mother of blind, song-writing son Eddie Albert (who opposes her son's relationship with funky, next-door-neighbor Goldie Hawn) in director Milton Katselas' Butterflies are Free (with three nominations and one win - Best Supporting Actress).

The other Best Supporting Actress nominees were: Jeannie Berlin (with her sole nomination) as Lila Kolodny - the nice Jewish girl (director Elaine May's real-life daughter) who faces abandonment on her honeymoon by husband Charles Grodin in The Heartbreak Kid Geraldine Page (with her fifth of eight career nominations) as Tillie's (Carol Burnett) bitchy friend and matchmaker Gertrude in director Martin Ritt's Pete 'n' Tillie (with two nominations and no wins) Susan Tyrell (with her sole nomination) as Oma - the alcoholic, temporary girlfriend of a boxing contender (Stacey Keach) in director John Huston's Fat City (the film's sole nomination) Shelley Winters (with her fourth and last career nomination) as Belle Rosen - a Jewish grandmother-passenger who saves Gene Hackman's life (and loses her own) in Irwin Allen's all-star cast/disaster film epic The Poseidon Adventure (with eight nominations and two wins - Best Song ('The Morning After') and a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects!) Never-nominated actor Edward G.

Robinson (1893-1973) received an Honorary statuette posthumously, although he knew of the honor. He had died two months prior to the Oscars show. His widow, Jane Adler, accepted the award for Robinson ("who achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts and a dedicated citizen...in sum, a Renaissance man. From his friends in the industry he loves"), and read a speech that Robinson had written upon hearing of his honor a week before his death. He had experienced a memorable film career, in such films as Little Caesar (1930) , Double Indemnity (1944) , and Key Largo (1948). The most unlikely Oscar nomination in the history of the Academy Awards was this year's Best Original Song nomination of "Ben" from the grade-Z horror film Ben about killer rats. The title song was sung by 14 year-old child star Michael Jackson during the end credits and for the Oscar ceremony. The song, which won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, lost the Oscar to "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure.

Charlie Chaplin's film Limelight (1952) , made twenty years earlier, finally became eligible for Oscar consideration this year. According to the Academy's rules at the time, a movie could not be considered for an Academy Award until it had played in Los Angeles. When Limelight finally played at a theater in Los Angeles in 1972, it became eligible for an award. Chaplin was co-awarded the film's sole Oscar nomination and win - for Best Original Dramatic Score. It was Chaplin's ONLY competitive Academy Award win. Oscar Snubs and Omissions: Like Edward G. Robinson, win-less Rosalind Russell (after four unsuccessful Best Actress nominations in 1942, 1946, 1947, and 1958), accepted the Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Cinematographer Gordon Willis' work on the Best Picture winner, The Godfather , was completely overlooked. His first career nomination occurred almost a decade later for Zelig (1983), and he wasn't honored again until the Academy nominated him a third time - for one of his weakest efforts, The Godfather, Part III (1990) .

Writer/star Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam and his performance as klutsy Bogey-film buff Allan Felix were overlooked in 1972, and so was Jon Voight's performance as Ed and Ned Beatty's role as chubby and assaulted Bobby Trippe in director John Boorman's exciting adventure film Deliverance . Never-nominated Howard Da Silva was ignored for his role as Benjamin Franklin in 1776, as were Alastair Sim (as apoplectic Bishop Lampton) and Arthur Lowe (as drinking butler Daniel Tucker) in The Ruling Class. And two actresses were un-nominated in Peter Bogdanovich's screwball comedy What's Up, Doc?: Madeline Kahn in her film debut as Ryan O'Neal's fiancee Eunice Burns and Barbra Streisand as Judy Maxwell. Stacy Keach should have been nominated for his role as come-back boxer Billy Tully in director John Huston's Fat City. And Robert Redford missed out on nominations for his early roles as political candidate Bill McKay in Michael Ritchie's political satire The Candidate, and as a wilderness mountain man - the title role - in Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson.

First-rate Michael York was overlooked for his underappreciated role as bisexual British writer and Cambridge doctoral candidate Brian Roberts in Cabaret - a role that enhanced Liza Minnelli's Oscar-winning performance. John Cazale was denied nominations for his two roles as Fredo in CABARET (1972) (****) | Animation World Network In Blogs: Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN Bob Fosse surprisingly won the best director Oscar over GODFATHER helmer Francis Ford Coppola for this melancholy musical. His handling of the material is entertaining, as well as subversively haunting. The design and choreography of the musical numbers begin with the sexual razzle-dazzle one would expect, but over the course of the film take on an unsettling freak show quality, as the Nazis come to power in 1930s Germany. Roger Ebert said it best -- the film ends with the joyous title song, which is underlined by total desperation. Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli, ARTHUR) is a bohemian, ex-pat American, cabaret singer. She has drunk the kool aid of the cabaret lifestyle of living life like it’s an endless party.

In to her boarding house comes proper English language teacher Brian Roberts (Michael York, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS). They develop a friendship that later develops into romance. Sally introduces her to all her acquaintances from the world of the cabaret, which includes gigolo Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper, THE LAST COMBAT) and the twisted Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS). Later Brian will inadvertently introduce Fritz to wealthy Jewish girl Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson, BARRY LYNDON) and Sally and Brian's relationship will be challenged by the presence of filthy-rich, decadent baron Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem, THE DAMNED). In addition to Fosse, Minnelli won an Oscar for best actress and Grey won for best supporting actor. Both deserved the recognition for shiny performances. (However, some could argue that Al Pacino in THE GODFATHER should have won over Grey.) Minnelli commands the screen as the shocking party girl who lives her entire life as a whim. She is equally powerful in carrying the comedic, dramatic and musical elements of the role.

The famed number where she is dressed in the skimpy, black outfit with the black bowler hat has become the iconic image from the film. The number oozes sex appeal. Grey drives the musical numbers as a kind of ringleader. His pale face make-up and puckered-style red lipstick becomes more garish over the course of time, adding to the increasingly seedier atmosphere in the cabaret. The devotees to the girlie saloon delude themselves about the growing danger of the Nazis. York's Brian is the only one who notices and cares to say something. For a time, he loses himself in the world, but never loses his soul to nihilism. In addition to directing and the two acting Oscars, the film picked up five more awards for art direction, cinematography, editing, original music and sound — all of which it deserved. The art design is key to the tone, as is the photography. The editing helps add the subversive undertone, with the message peeking out in flashes from behind the "life's a party" façade. The production was also nominated for best picture and best screen adaptation.

This is the kind of film that slowly builds its purpose, seeming like it's about nothing too meaningful until the meaning starts creeping into the corners and by the end you're broadsided into silence. That's why the treatment of the closing credits is so effective. You're left feeling like you've come down from a fun night of partying and wakened by the impact of your car careening into a pole. Not all musicals end with a happy song. Rick DeMott Bob Fosse | The Official Masterworks Broadway Site Bob Fosse Search American dancer, choreographer for the musical stage and screen, writer, and director Bob Fosse (b. Chicago, IL, 23 June 1927; d. Washington, DC, 23 September 1987) was perhaps the most influential figure in the field of jazz dance in the twentieth century.

Enormously creative, inspired, driven, strong-willed, tireless, and ruthless, Fosse forged an uncompromising modern style – characterized by finger-snapping, tilted bowler hats, net stockings, splayed gloved fingers, turned-in knees and toes, and shoulder rolls – that has frequently been called “cynical.” The choreographer himself, rather cryptically, identified it as “the amoeba.” On Broadway, Fosse won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards® for Choreography (The Pajama Game 1955, Damn Yankees 1956, Redhead 1959, Little Me 1963, Sweet Charity 1966, Pippin 1973, Dancin’ 1978, Big Deal 1986), plus one for stage direction (Pippin 1973); he won an Oscar® for his direction of the film version of Cabaret (1972), and received three other Academy Award® nominations (Lenny 1974, two for All That Jazz 1979).

Influenced initially by the work of Jack Cole, Fred Astaire, and Jerome Robbins, Fosse was fluent in a dizzying mix of styles: in Redhead alone he incorporated elements of the ballet, jazz, march, cancan, gypsy dance, and the traditional English music-hall. Nor had he any reservations about drawing upon the seamier facts of his own personal life: his 1979 film All That Jazz – written, directed, and choreographed by himself – laid it all out: his compulsive chain-smoking, drinking, drug-taking, and womanizing. Of Norwegian and Irish descent, Bob was the fifth of six children born to a Chicago vaudevillian. He was early regarded as a child prodigy and given tap dancing lessons; he was on the professional vaudeville stage before reaching high school. At dance school he was the only male. “I got a lot of jokes and got whistled at a lot. But I beat up a couple of the whistlers and the rest sort of tapered off after a while.” At thirteen, he joined forces with another young dancer as The Riff Brothers, and within a few years the pair were making very good money indeed.

At fifteen Fosse was working as an emcee in a string of burlesque houses; his first bit of choreography was for a quartet of fan dancers. Finishing high school in 1945, he enlisted in the Navy, but World War II very soon came to an end. He completed his two-year tour of duty honing his skills and entertaining troops on Okinawa. Upon discharge, he moved to New York City, formed a dance team with his first wife, Mary Ann Niles, and performed in variety shows for television and the musical stage. In 1950 he debuted on Broadway in a revue called Dance Me a Song, and in 1952 he understudied for Harold Lang in the title role of Pal Joey. 1953 took Bob Fosse to Hollywood and a contract with MGM. Among the three movies he made that year was Kiss Me, Kate, with Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, and Ann Miller.

He choreographed (uncredited – the film’s official choreographer was Hermes Pan) and danced a short but brilliant sequence with Carol Haney in the film, and thus came to the attention of two of Broadway’s most powerful producers, George Abbott and Jerome Robbins. After contributing choreography to another MGM musical, My Sister Eileen, Fosse returned to New York – with a new wife, actress and dancer Joan McCracken – to work on a new musical with Abbott, The Pajama Game. He also brought along Carol Haney as dance partner and choreographer’s assistant, who wound up in the show, winning a Tony® for Best Featured Actress. The Pajama Game (1954) was the first show fully choreographed by Fosse and it was a smash hit. Sensational numbers like “Hernando’s Hideaway” (performed in half-darkness) and “Steam Heat” (which was so hot that director Abbott was tempted to cut it) won Fosse a Tony Award® – his first of eight – for Best Choreography, and a Donaldson Award.

Damn Yankees followed in 1955, winning Fosse his second Tony® and his first opportunity to work with dynamite redhead Gwen Verdon (“Whatever Lola Wants”), who would become his third and last wife. In 1956 stage director and choreographer Jerome Robbins invited Bob Fosse to co-choreograph Bells Are Ringing (with Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin). Nominated for Best Musical, the show ran for 924 performances and won Tony Awards® for the two stars. Fosse and Robbins shared a nomination for Best Choreography. Bells Are Ringing was adapted for the silver screen in 1960. New Girl in Town brought Abbott, Verdon, and Fosse together again in 1957. Based on the play Anna Christie by Eugene O’Neill, the musical had so much drama and so little movement that Fosse started to embellish the walks of the performers – playing prostitutes – until he had developed a “Red Light Ballet.” At tryouts in New Haven, it was so shocking that the police padlocked the production until it was cleaned up.

(Soon after the show opened in New York, the “Red Light” sequence was almost entirely restored.) Tired of making concessions for the sake of “propriety,” Fosse began to realize that he needed to be his own director in order to have complete creative freedom. Here his close relationship with Gwen Verdon, who was then practically the queen of Broadway, came to his aid: she consented to star in her next show, Redhead (1959), only on condition that Fosse would direct as well as choreograph. Redhead won Tonys® in 1959 for Best Musical, Best Actor (Richard Kiley), Best Actress (Verdon), Best Costumes (Rouben Ter-Arutunian), and Best Choreography. The added pressure and responsibility of directing on top of composing dances began to tell on Fosse with a marked increase to his irascibility. It may also have had a bad effect on his health, for he suffered an epileptic seizure during a rehearsal for his next show, The Conquering Hero (1961). The producers decided to replace him with Todd Bolender, and Fosse was badly stung.

The change did not help the show much; it was an utter flop. Meanwhile, another Broadway show that was in rehearsal at the same time, How To Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961), starring Robert Morse, was having problems with its choreographer Hugh Lambert. Fosse was offered his job, and out of sincere sympathy agreed to accept the title of “musical staging director” only if Lambert was allowed to stay on board as “choreographer.” He reshaped the staging of “Coffee Break” and “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” into riotously comic romps, helping to win seven Tonys® for the production, including Best Musical, with a Pulitzer Prize to boot. In 1962 Fosse choreographed and co-directed (with Cy Feuer) Little Me, starring Sid Caesar; though the show was nominated for just about everything, the only Tony® win went to Fosse.

In 1964 he briefly returned to acting, reprising his star turn in Pal Joey and receiving a Tony® nomination for it, but it was not long before he was back directing and choreographing for Sweet Charity (1966), a project he had conceived and written, in part, himself. With its two innovative numbers, “Big Spender” and “Rich Man’s Frug,” the show earned seven Tony® nominations and one win: for Fosse. This distribution of Awards was beginning to look like a pattern: Pippin (1972) (Fosse once again wrote some of the book, uncredited) took six nominations and five wins: two of them for Fosse as director and as choreographer. Pippin became the highest-earning Broadway show in history. In 1969 Sweet Charity was made into a film (it had been suggested originally by Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria), Fosse directing, starring Shirley MacLaine in the Gwen Verdon role.

Fosse’s second directorial film venture was a true blockbuster, Cabaret with Liza Minnelli and Michael York, which ran away with eight Academy Awards® in 1973, including one for Best Director. This, with the two Emmy Awards he won (Direction and Choreography) for the 1972 television concert Liza with a Z and the Pippin Tony®, made for an extraordinary accretion of Awards in a single year (1973): a Tony®, an Emmy, and an Oscar®, all for Best Director. After two more films, Lenny (a biopic of Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman) and The Little Prince, the year 1975 brought Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon back to Broadway in Chicago, with Fosse as book writer, director, and choreographer. Surprisingly (especially in light of the explosive success of the 1996 revival which is now approaching its seven thousandth performance and is the longest-running show in Broadway history), it won no Tony Awards® this first time around, though it got eleven nominations.

Perhaps its bizarre, morbid story was ahead of its time: Velma and Roxie, incarcerated and accused of murder, are attempting to use their notoriety as criminals to achieve stardom in show business. One week into rehearsals for Chicago, Fosse had a heart attack and had to undergo bypass surgery. After directing and choreographing the revue Dancin’ (1978, winning his seventh Tony® for Choreography) on Broadway, Fosse turned again to film, this time with his nakedly autobiographical All That Jazz (1979). The action centers on his 1975 heart attack, and nearly every character in the movie represents a real person in his life: the role of wife Verdon, from whom Fosse was now separated, was taken by Leland Palmer; Roy Scheider played Fosse himself, John Lithgow represented his rival Michael Bennett, and several in the cast essentially played themselves, including Fosse’s daughter Nicole and dancer Ann Reinking, with whom he was living at the time.

(He remained legally married to Verdon until the end of his life; in fact died in her presence.) All That Jazz took four Academy Awards®, earned Fosse his third Oscar® nomination for Best Director, and won the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. His next and last film, the controversial Star 80 (1983), was about the life and murder of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. It was nominated for several awards, including Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival, but its disagreeable subject matter did not win many fans in the U.S. Big Deal (1986), Fosse’s last Broadway production as director and choreographer before his death, was something of a cynical repudiation of his own success. It was based on the 1958 Italian comedy classic Big Deal on Madonna Street (I soliti ignoti), in which a gang of crooks in postwar Sicily bungles their way through a caper that is thwarted at every turn. Fosse identified with the main character: “That’s my part!

A swaggering bumbler who thinks he’s a ladies’ man, and he’s not.” Although Big Deal lasted for no more than 69 performances, it won his eighth Tony® for Best Choreography, and four more nominations. In September 1987 Sweet Charity, directed by Bob Fosse and assistant-directed by Gwen Verdon, was being revived at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. Just as the show was opening, Fosse had a massive heart attack on the sidewalk outside the theatre and collapsed in his hotel room in Verdon’s arms. He died on the way to the hospital, and his death was announced to the cast after a standing ovation at the end of the evening. In 1999, a three-act musical revue conceived and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Ann Reinking, choreographed by Reinking (after Fosse) and Chet Walker, opened on Broadway. Gwen Verdon served as artistic consultant. It was called simply Fosse.

The show won the Tony Award® for Best Musical, and after 1,093 performances in New York, moved to London to win Fosse and Reinking, in 2001, a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreography. Bob Fosse was inducted posthumously into the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs in April 2007. A segment of Paulina Street in Chicago now has the honorary appellation of “Bob Fosse Way”. – Lucy E. Cross Bob Fosse - Director - Films as Director:, Other Films:, Publications Bob Fosse - Director Bob Fosse - Director Nationality: American. Born: Robert Louis Fosse in Chicago, 23 June 1927. Education: Amundsen High School, Chicago, graduated 1945; studied acting at American Theatre Wing, New York, 1947. Family: Married 1) Mary Ann Niles (divorced); 2) Joan McCracken (divorced); and 3) Gwen Verdon, 1960 (divorced).

Career: Formed dance team, "The Riff brothers," with Charles Grass, 1940; master of ceremonies in a night club, 1942; enlisted in U.S. Navy, 1945, assigned to entertainment units in Pacific; chorus dancer in touring companies, 1948–50; Broadway debut in Dance Me a Song , 1950; signed to MGM, Hollywood, 1953; Broadway debut as choreographer with The Pajama Game , 1954; directed first film, Sweet Charity , 1968. Awards: Nine "Tony" Awards; Oscar for Best Director, and British Academy Award for Best Director, for Cabaret , 1972; also Emmy Award, for Liza with a "Z, " 1973. Died: Of a heart attack, in Washington, D.C., 23 September 1987. Films as Director: By FOSSE: articles— "Inter/View with Bob Fosse," with L. Picard, in Inter/View (New York), March 1972.

"The Making of Lenny ," interview with S. Hornstein, in Filmmakers Newsletter (Ward Hill, Massachusetts), February 1975. Interview in Cinématographe (Paris), March 1984. On FOSSE: books— Altman, Rick, The American Film Musical , Bloomington, Indiana, 1989. Grubb, Kevin Boyd, Razzle Dazzle: The Life and Work of Bob Fosse , New York, 1989. Bob Fosse (left) on the set of Star 80 Gottfried, Martin, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse , New York, 1990. Beddow, Margery, Bob Fosse's Broadway , Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1996. On FOSSE: articles— Vallance, T., "Bob Fosse," in Focus on Film (London), Summer 1972. Gardner, P., "Bob Fosse," in Action (Los Angeles), May/June 1974.

Badder, D.J., "Bob Fosse," in Film Dope (London), April 1979. Drew, B., "Life as a Long Rehearsal," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), November 1979. Braun, E., "In Camera: The Perfectionist," in Films and Filming (London), January 1980. Valot, J., P. Ross, and D. Parra, "Bob Fosse," in Revue du Cinéma (Paris), March 1984. Mizejewski, Linda, "Women, Monsters, and the Masochistic Aesthetic in Fosse's Cabaret ," in Journal of Film and Video (Boston), vol. 39, no. 4, 1987. Wood, Robin, "Cloven Hoofer: Choreography as Autobiography in All That Jazz ," in Post Script (Jacksonville, Florida), Winter 1987. Obituary in Variety (New York), 24 September 1987. Obituary in Hollywood Reporter , 25 September 1987.

Obituary in Films and Filming (London), November 1987. Kemp, P., "Degrees of Radiance," in Cinema Papers (Melbourne), March 1988. * * * Rex Reed once said of Bob Fosse (in a review of his performance as The Snake in The Little Prince ), "The man can do anything!" Somewhat effusive, Reed's comment nonetheless has more than a kernel of truth: Fosse won eight Tonys, one Oscar, and one Emmy over the course of his career. In fact, he garnered four of the awards (the Oscar for Cabaret , the Emmy for Liza with a Z , and two Tonys for Pippin ) in one year. Fosse started his career as a dancer and choreographer on Broadway and divided his time almost equally between directing for the stage and for films. All of Fosse's films are musicals (with the exception of Lenny ) and it is within this genre that he made significant contributions. The directorial choices employed by Fosse stemmed, not surprisingly, from his style of dancing and choreography: a type of eccentric jazz that isolates and exaggerates human motion, breaking it up into small components.

It has been noted that there appears to be little difference between the dance material for Fosse's stage and film choreography. But the presentation of the dance is radically different. On the stage, only the performers could create the fragmentation of Fosse's choreography. In film, the use of multiple camera set-ups and editing allowed an amplification of this fragmentation, essentially obliterating the dance material and the mise-en-scène. This style can be seen as the complete opposite of Astaire's presentation, which strives to preserve spatial and temporal integrity. "I love the camera," Fosse once said, "I love camera movement and camera angles. As a choreographer you see everything with a frame." Camera angle and camera image become more important choreographic components than the dancing. The dance routine itself is non-essential, subordinated to a more complex system of integration and commentary, as Jerome Delameter has noted. Fosse's notions of integration and commentary drastically altered the structure of the American musical film. Reacting against thirty-odd years of the Arthur Freed musical, Fosse broke new ground in 1972 with Cabaret. No longer were the musical numbers "integrated" into the narrative with people singing to each other.

All dance performances were logically grounded, occurring where they might be expected—on a stage, for example (and never leaving that stage, as Berkeley did)—and was distinctly separated from the narrative. The "integration" took place in the sense that each performance was a comment on the narrative action. In an interview with Glenn Loney for After Dark , Fosse shed some light on his approach. "I don't think there is any such thing as a realistic musical. As soon as people start to sing to each other, you've already gone beyond realism in the usual sense. . . . I have generally tried to make the musical more believable." Fosse did not seek to make the events more realistic, just more plausible and logical. Fosse expounded on his concepts of "believability," "integrated commentary," and visual fragmentation of performance via camera angle and editing with All That Jazz , a film in which musical numbers are literal hallucinations, obviously separated from the narrative but still logically grounded within it. —Greg Faller Bob Fosse Wins Best Directing: 1973 Oscars - YouTube Bob Fosse Wins Best Directing: 1973 Oscars Want to watch this again later?

Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Sep 28, 2009 Julie Andrews and George Stevens presenting Bob Fosse with the Oscar® for Directing "Cabaret" at the 45th Annual Academy Awards® in 1973. Category Bob Fosse - Biography - IMDb Bob Fosse Biography Showing all 55 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (3) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (29) | Personal Quotes (14) Overview (5) 5' 8" (1.73 m) Mini Bio (1) Bob Fosse was born on June 23, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Robert Louis Fosse. He is known for his work on All That Jazz (1979), Cabaret (1972) and Chicago (2002).

He was married to Gwen Verdon , Joan McCracken and Mary Ann Niles . He died on September 23, 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Spouse (3) (1947 - 1951) (divorced) Trade Mark (3) In most of his choreographed sequences, you will see him or his proteges wearing a hat/gloves. Highly stylized, sexual dance choreography Known publicly and in private as a ladies' man Trivia (29) Received three Emmy Awards in 1973 for Producing, Directing and Choreographing the television special Liza with a Z (1972) starring Liza Minnelli . Separated from Gwen Verdon in to 1970s, but remained married to her until his death. In the interim, he was romantically involved with Ann Reinking and Jessica Lange . Father (with Gwen Verdon ) of Nicole Fosse . Choreographer, screenwriter (besides director).

In 1973, he received an Academy Award for directing Cabaret (1972), a Tony Award for directing "Pippin", and an Emmy Award for directing Liza with a Z (1972). He's the only director to win all three major industry prizes in a single year. Was planning on making a film version of his Broadway hit "Chicago", with Madonna (a film version is once again in the works, thanks to the success of the Broadway revival), as well as a film about the life of Walter Winchell . Was at times slated to choreograph and direct several Broadway hits, including "Funny Girl" and "Promises, Promises". Throughout his career, he was always listed in the Manhattan phone directory. In most of his choreographed pieces, he (or those dancing his choreography) usually wore a hat and gloves. Fosse always wore hats because he started going bald at the age of 17; he used gloves a lot because he didn't like his hands.

Fosse was born in Chicago in 1927, which was the setting and time period for his famous 1975 musical, "Chicago", starring Gwen Verdon , Chita Rivera and Jerry Orbach . Fosse has unintentionally competed with Francis Ford Coppola on several occasions. Both were up for the 1972 Best Director Oscar (Coppola for The Godfather (1972) and Fosse for Cabaret (1972); Fosse won). Both were up for the 1974 Best Director Oscar (Coppola for The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Fosse for Lenny (1974); Coppola won). Both were up for the 1979 Best Director Oscar (Coppola for Apocalypse Now (1979) and Fosse for All That Jazz (1979); neither won).

Also, when Fosse's film won the Palme D'or at the Cannes film festival in 1980 (Coppola won the previous year for Apocalypse Now (1979)), he tied with the Akira Kurosawa film Kagemusha (1980), which had two Americans as executive producers: George Lucas and Coppola. His idol was Fred Astaire . He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2001 (2000 season) for Best Theatre Choreographer with Ann Reinking for "Fosse" at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Won seven Tony Awards out of 15 nominations, placing him just one win behind record-holder Gower Champion , who also had the same number of nominations.

Fosse's wins were, as Best Choreographer: in 1955, for "The Pajama Game"; in 1956, for "Damn Yankees!"; in 1959, for "Redhead"; in 1963, for "Little Me"; in 1966, for "Sweet Charity"; in 1973 for "Pippin"; and as Best Director (Musical): in 1973, for "Pippin". His other Tony nominations were: as Best Choreographer, in 1957, with Jerome Robbins for "Bells Are Ringing"; in 1958, for "New Girl in Town"; and in 1976 for "Chicago"; as Director (Musical): in 1963, with Cy Feuer for "Little Me"; in 1966 for "Sweet Charity"; and in 1976 for "Chicago"; as Best Actor (Musical), in 1964 for a City Center revival of "Pal Joey"; and as Best Book (Musical), in 1976 with Fred Ebb for "Chicago".

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 302-304. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. Directed five actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Liza Minnelli , Joel Grey , Dustin Hoffman , Valerie Perrine and Roy Scheider . Minnelli and Grey won for their performances in Cabaret (1972). Son of a vaudevillian, he performed on stage in burlesque while in his early teens. After 1945, formed a dance partnership (mixing ballet with tap), with his then-wife, Mary Ann Niles, performing at nightclubs and in stage musicals. Pictured on one of a set of 4 USA 'forever' commemorative postage stamps featuring Innovative Choreographers, issued 28 July 2012. Others honored in this issue were Isadora Duncan , José Limon and Katherine Dunham . Price on day of issue was 45¢. Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979.

Fosse died on 14th Street NW, Washington, D.C. on the corner closest to the J.W. Marriott Hotel of a heart attack. He was walking from the Willard Hotel across the street to the National Theater a block away to direct one of his stage plays. Was best friends with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky . Was acting mentor to actress Melanie Griffith . "Chicago" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded he 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Production. "Chicago," at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded the 1998 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Musical (Large Theatre). He and Ann Reinking were awarded the 1999 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Choreography for "Fosse" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The cast of "Fosse" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded the 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Ensemble. "Fosse" on Broadway in New York City was nominated for the 1999 Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Musical.

(Richard Maltby Jr. Chet Walker and Ann Reinking). "Fosse" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded the 1998 Back Stage Garland Award for Outstanding Production. Personal Quotes (14) I thank God that I wasn't born perfect. Live like you'll die tomorrow, work like you don't need the money, and dance like nobody's watching. I'm still working on my life, just like it's out of town, and when I get it fixed, I'll bring it in. Don't dance for the audience; dance for yourself. I would never discriminate against someone's talent because they showed the poor taste to like me. In today's world, everything seems like some sort of long audition. It's showtime, folks!

Oscar Redux: Life is a Cabaret; An Old Friend is Back | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian Contact Privacy Policy Terms of Use Oscar Redux: Life is a Cabaret; An Old Friend is Back For the 40th anniversary of the Oscars that made Cabaret a classic, actor Joel Grey stops by the Smithsonian for a special donation and screening smithsonian.com February 22, 2013 Liza Minnelli took home Best Actress for her role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Image courtesy of Fanpop Sometimes, the road to the Red Carpet is as fascinating as the journey to Oz—and with a more glittering prize behind the curtain. That’s certainly true of the 1972 film Cabaret , which won a colossal eight Oscars, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). The only big award it missed was Best Picture, which went to The Godfather.

Cabaret began its life as a Broadway show produced and directed by Hal Prince in 1966, but that stage musical was itself based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel, Goodbye to Berlin; a 1951 play, I Am a Camera , was also taken from this short novel. In part a fictionalized memoir, Goodbye to Berlin chronicled Isherwood’s bohemian experiences in 1930s Berlin as Weimar fell to the rise of Fascism; the “divinely decadent” Sally Bowles debuts here as a young Englishwoman (Jill Haworth), who sings in a local cabaret. Film poster, courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery The play I Am a Camera fizzled, although it remains chiseled in Broadway history for New York critic Walter Kerr ’s infamous review: “Me no Leica.” The key stage production came about in 1966 when Hal Prince collaborated with composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb on the landmark Broadway musical, Cabaret.

Prince wanted to develop his idea of the “concept musical” with this show—he told his cast at the first rehearsal, a show was not only a spectacle that “promotes entertainment,” but should have a theme that “makes an important statement.” The devastating rise of Fascism would be an inescapable dramatic presence: designer Boris Aronson created a huge mirror that faced the audience and, in its reflection, incorporated these passive spectators into the horrific events unfolding onstage. One key character introduced by Prince was the Master of Ceremonies. In the mid-1990s, curator Dwight Blocker Bowers of the American History Museum and I interviewed Hal Prince for an exhibition that we were working on, “ Red, Hot, & Blue: A Smithsonian Salute to the American Musical .” Prince told us that this role was based on a dwarf emcee he had seen at a club in West Germany when he served in the U.S. Army after World War II. In Cabaret, the Emcee—portrayed with charming decadence by Joel Grey—symbolizes the precarious lives of people caught in the web of Nazism’s rise to power.

The Emcee rules over a cast of characters at a dicey cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub, and his behavior becomes the crux of the show: uncontrolled and without any moral restraint, he represents the flip side of “freedom.” Hal Prince’s desire to produce a break-through musical reflected his commitment to devising a socially responsible musical theater. Just as his stage production grew out of the social and political upheavals of the Sixties, the show’s identity as a postwar cautionary tale continued when the film Cabaret premiered in 1972, as reports of a Watergate burglary began appearing in the Washington Post. Today, the film version of Cabaret is celebrating its 40th anniversary with the release of a fully-restored DVD. In the movie, Joel Grey reprized his Emcee role, and the film begins with him drawing you leeringly into his kaleidoscopic refuge at the Kit Kat Club–a subterranean haven where demi-monde figures cast shadows of in consequence while Nazi boots stomp nearby. (Later in the film, it’s clear that the song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” doesn’t refer to them.) Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Minnelli stole the show. Liza May Minnelli; 1972 by Alan Pappe. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery; gift of Time magazine In the film version, the role of Sally Bowles is played by Liza Minnelli, whose strengths as a singer and dancer are reflected in her Oscar-winning portrayal; in the film, Sally Bowles has become an American and is a good deal more talented than any actual Kit Kat Klub entertainer would ever have been. In addition to her show-stopping performance of the title song, Minnelli-Bowles sings such evocative Kander and Ebb works as “Maybe This Time” and, in a duet with Joel Grey, “The Money Song.” She also dazzles in the churning choreography Bob Fosse devised for her. The Library of Congress selected Cabaret for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1995, deeming it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The newly-restored DVD was made possible after 1,000 feet of damaged film was repaired through the process of hand-painting with a computer stylus.

This restoration is being spotlighted at the National Museum of American History’s Warner Theatre over the Oscar weekend. With his donated Emcee costume displayed onstage, Joel Grey will be interviewed by entertainment curator Dwight Bowers on February 22. As the lights go down and the film begins, the theater will be filled with Grey’s legendary Emcee bidding everyone, “Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!/ Im Cabaret, Au Cabaret, To Cabaret!” Curator Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery. A regular contributor to Around the Mall, Amy Henderson covers the best of pop culture from her view at the National Portrait Gallery. She recently wrote about Bangs and other bouffant hairstyles and Downton Abbey . When Oscars' Best Director Doesn't Win Best Picture | Hollywood Reporter When Oscars' Best Director Doesn't Win Best Picture 3:22 PM PST 2/22/2013 by Aaron Couch COMMENTS Focus Features Ang Lee took home directing honors for "Brokeback Mountain," but the film lost to "Crash" for best picture. There have been 22 instances in which the film by the year's top helmer didn't take home best picture, including the three times it happened to John Ford.

If Ben Affleck’s Argo continues its awards season hot streak and takes home best picture during Sunday’s Academy Awards, one thing is certain: there will be a best director winner whose film failed to snag Oscar’s top prize. (Affleck is not nominated in the best director category.) The two awards usually go hand in hand, but there have been 22 instances in which helmers took home directing honors without their films winning best picture. It happened most recently in 2005 when Ang Lee won the award while his Brokeback Mountain fell to Crash. PHOTOS: Oscar Nominees Before They Were Famous Other relatively recent examples include Roman Polanski’s 2002 win for The Pianist while the film lost to Chicago; Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic being bested by Gladiator (2000); Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan losing to Shakespeare in Love (1998); and Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July falling to Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

John Ford, who took home a record four best director statues, won three of them in years in which his films did not take best picture: 1935's The Informer; 1940's The Grapes of Wrath; and 1952's The Quiet Man. (Ford’s other best director honor came in 1941, when his How Green Was My Valley defeated Citizen Kane for best picture.) Find the complete list of best directors whose films didn’t win best picture below. 1927-1928: Frank Borzage (Seventh Heaven - Dramatic Picture); Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights -Comedy Picture) 1928-29: Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady) 1930-31: Norman Taurog (Skippy) 1931-32: Frank Borzage (Bad Girl) 1935: John Ford (The Informer) 1936: Frank Capra (Mr.

Deeds Goes to Town) 1937: Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth) 1940: John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath) 1948: John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) 1949: Joseph Mankiewicz (A Letter to Three Wives) 1951: George Stevens (A Place in the Sun) 1952: John Ford (The Quiet Man) 1956: George Stevens (Giant) 1967: Mike Nichols (The Graduate) 1972: Bob Fosse ( Cabaret) 1989: Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July) 1998: Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan) 2000: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) 2002: Roman Polanski (The Pianist) 2005: Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)

Question: Bob Fosse won a "Best Director" Oscar in 1972 for which film?
Answer: Cabaret