Michael Kidd

Jan 8 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HE WAS in many ways the embodiment of the American dream – offering the new land his exuberance, talent and love of life, free from the persecution suffered by his ancestors.

This superb dancer and choreographer was rewarded by seeing his name in lights.

Of course, it wasn’t his real name. That was Milton Greenwald, son of Lillian and Abraham, a barber in Brooklyn, New York, who had fled Tsarist Russia.

But he was known as Michael Kidd to millions, particularly for his arrangement of the spectacular barn-dance sequence in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), starring Howard Keel – surely one of the great expressions of the optimism then pumping through America.

The whole glorious confection was an update of the Rape of the Sabine Women – the legend about how early Romans took wives from a local settlement in the hope of starting a baby boom. Everyone since has emphasised that the word “rape” was used to mean carrying off, over the shoulder, rather than enforced sexual intercourse.

With much thigh-slapping and songs such as Bless Your Beautiful Hide from the Gene De Paul and Johnny Mercer score, it was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic, though it would certainly not be regarded as politically correct today.

At first, Kidd, a sophisticated city boy, rejected the overtures of Vincent Benet, the director, who wanted ballet to arise from seven uncouth backwoodsmen, hoofing on the manure.

But he relented after being allowed to hire four leading ballet dancers to replace the brothers in some routines.

Kidd studied mechanical engineering at City College, New York, before taking a scholarship at the School of American Ballet.

An athletic dancer, he toured with the Ballet Caravan, starring as Billy the Kidd in one show. An enthusiasm for Charlie Chaplin’s work led to his own ballet, On Stage!, a sentimental offering too obviously influenced by the Little Tramp.

Soon after that, he moved to Broadway, where he was much in demand as a choreographer and dancer, who would work with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Marlene Dietrch and Danny Kaye.

He directed Astaire in the film Band Wagon (1953) and danced with him in It’s Always Faith Weather (1955). He also choreographed other hit movies including Star! (1968) and Hello, Dolly! the following year. He married twice and had four children.

Michael Kidd, dancer/choreographer; born August 12, 1915, died December 23, 2007.