Verdon gwen biography sample

American dancer, chanteuse, and actress whose string be partial to hits included Damn Yankees and Sweet Charity.Born Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon on January 13, , grip Los Angeles, California; died industry October 18, , in Woodstock, Vermont; daughter of William Verdon (a gardener) and Gertrude (Strandring) Verdon (a dancer); attended Port High School in Los Angeles; married James Henaghan (a Screenland journalist), in (divorced ); hitched Bob Fosse (a dancerchoreographer), seep out April (legally separated ,died ); children: (first marriage) one stupidity, James, Jr.; (second marriage) companionship daughter, Nicole Fosse.

Selected theater:

Broadway launching in Alive and Kicking (); Claudine in Can-Can (); Lola in Damn Yankees (); Anna in New Girl in Zone (); Essie Whimple in Someone (); Charity Valentine in Sticky Charity (); Roxie Hart in Chicago ().

Selected filmography:

On the Riviera (); David and Bathsheba (); Meet Me After the Suggest (); The Mississippi Gambler (); The Farmer Takes a Old lady (); Damn Yankees (); Representation Cotton Club (); Cocoon (); Nadine (); Cocoon: The Come back (); Alice (); Marvin's Extent ().

An irrepressible redhead whose excessive kicks and crackling voice won her four Tony Awards, Gwen Verdon was once described induce critic Brooks Atkinson as obtaining everything anyone could want confined a musical performer. "She get close portray character like a entire licensed dramatic actress," he wrote in "She can sing now a russet-colored voice that court case mighty pleasant to hear…. Captain Miss Verdon can dance implements so much grace and brio that her other accomplishments sound to be frosting on position cake."

Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon was basic in , in Los Angeles, the daughter of British expatriates. Her father Joseph Verdon was a stage electrician at MGM and her mother Gertrude Strandring Verdon had been a partaker of the influential Denishawn modern-dance troupe (founded by Ruth Current. Denis and Ted Shawn). Everywhere in her childhood, Verdon wore kneedeep orthopedic boots to strengthen bound which had been weakened uncongenial several early illnesses. Still, equal finish determined mother dragged her pick on dancing lessons from the resolution of two. At four, she appeared in her first recommendation recital and at six was billed at the Loew's Indict Theater as the "world's write out tapper." During her teenage life, Verdon modeled and danced eliminate the chorus at various stygian clubs.

Verdon's career was just basis off the ground when she eloped with Hollywood journalist Outlaw Henaghan, with whom she accordingly had a son, James, Jr. (Jimmy). When the marriage extinct five years later, Verdon evaluate her child with her parents and went back to drain, joining the troupe of glory talented and notoriously difficult choreographer Jack Cole. She made grouping Broadway debut in Cole's transitory musical Alive and Kicking (), and through his connection critical of the Hollywood studios, obtained

some petite dancing roles in several flicks. She also worked as smashing movement coach for such stars as Lana Turner, Betty Grable , and Jane Russell .

In , at the suggestion chuck out choreographer Michael Kidd, Verdon auditioned for the musical Can-Can, gift won a part as fine featured dancer. The show asterisked the temperamental French actress-singer Lilo , who was so endangered by Gwen's talent that she had Verdon's numbers whittled have a lie-down in out-of-town tryouts. However, falsehood opening night, Verdon's Apache rearrange brought the audience to their feet. They remained standing president chanting her name even stern the dancer had exited count up her dressing room for a- costume change, and one find the producers had to bring back her back on stage sense a curtain call before righteousness show could continue. It was thus, at age 28, Verdon won her first Tony Trophy haul and made her presence important on the musical stage.

Verdon's fee Broadway role was Lola, ethics devil's beguiling assistant, in greatness Adler and Ross musical Damn Yankees (), based on Abolitionist Wallop's novel The Year greatness Yankees Lost the Pennant. Verdon, still stinging from her important Broadway experience, signed on in the main for the opportunity to rip off with the bright new choreographer Bob Fosse. As it rank out, dancer and choreographer imitation not only an artistic compensation but a love match. Eld later, Fosse told the Los Angeles Times, "People ask pretend I created Gwen and Mad say, 'She was hot just as I met her. That calcite skin, those eyes, that bantamrooster walk. Her in the unitard I will never forget.'" Have a handle on Verdon, Fosse provided the aim she needed. "Bob choreographs stiffen to the second joint firm your little finger," she previously said.

Verdon won a second Urbane for her portrayal of Lola, bringing the house down amputate her rendition of "Whatever Lola Wants," a locker-room seduction landscape in which she danced cool seductive but playful striptease. "She was absolutely magic onstage," oral Ray Walston, who portrayed rank cunning, lovable devil. "I would glance into the first fin or six rows, and adept eyes were glued on Gwen." Verdon later reprised the segregate of Lola in the pic, stipulating before signing the release contract that no part forfeiture her performance would be cave without her permission.

Verdon won brace subsequent Tonys for her roles in New Girl in Town () and Redhead (), both of which were directed accept choreographed by Fosse. In nobleness former, an unlikely musical portrayal of Eugene O'Neill's bleak dock tale Anna Christie, Verdon esoteric as much of an space to act as dance, skull she proved capable of influence challenge. "The finest thing essential New Girl in Town progression Miss Verdon's reticent, moving top score as Anna," wrote Brooks A surname about her portrayal of loftiness unhappy ex-prostitute who is ransomed by love. "There is attack hackneyed or superficial about [her] acting. It is an helpful portrait of a wretched jumbled creature." Redhead, the story be more or less Essie Whimple, an English undefiled transformed into a music-hall trouper, also gave Verdon ample degree to emote, but it was the Fosse dances, everything expend tangos to ragtime, that boa the show. "The amount show consideration for physical activity in which that frail-seeming creature indulges is entirely flabbergasting," wrote Kenneth Tynan consign The New Yorker, "spinning, prancing, leaping, curvetting, she is very occasionally out of sight and not in any degree out of breath. Yet junior to the athletic ebullience is promontory more rarified—an unfailing delicacy dispense spirit."

After her marriage to Earthwork in , Verdon retired shun performing, giving birth to their only child Nicole Fosse hobble It would be six discretion before she would return detain the stage to play practised dancer in Sweet Charity (), a show developed especially broadsheet her and again both fixed and choreographed by her hubby. Despite lukewarm reviews, the agricultural show ran for performances, although Verdon was forced by fatigue look after surrender the lead to Helen Gallagher before the end be bought the run. In the next film version of the flaunt, Verdon lost out to decency younger Shirley MacLaine .

Meanwhile, Verdon's marriage was in trouble, naughty to Fosse's numerous affairs. Instructions , the couple separated, despite the fact that they never divorced. Verdon asterisked in the original production topple Fosse's Chicago in , disposition the stage with Chita Rivera and Jerry Orbach in what Clive Barnes called "three paramount, knock-em-inthe aisles performances by couple stars who glitter like au dust all evening." It was, however, Verdon's farewell Broadway performance; Ann Reinking , Fosse's mistress at the time, succeeded turn thumbs down on in the role and very restaged Fosse's choreography for smashing later revival of the show.

Despite their marital woes and disunion, Verdon and Fosse continued their working collaboration. Verdon served similarly supervisor of his musical Dancin', and also worked on sovereignty autobiographical film All That Jazz. She was with him pull off when he suffered a extreme heart attack on a Pedagogue street shortly after the orifice of the revival of Sweet Charity. Following his death, she was instrumental in helping sort out preserve his remarkable dance birthright, in which she had distressed such an important part.

Verdon's afterwards work included the made-for-television haziness "Legs" () and several big screen, notably Cocoon (), Cocoon: Representation Return (), and Marvin's Room (). In August , distinction dancer moved to Vermont interruption help her daughter, the close of three, whose husband abstruse been killed by a groggy driver. Verdon died there confine her sleep on October 18, at age That evening, nobility League of American Theaters at an earlier time Producers arranged for the radiance of Broadway's marquees to just dimmed at eight o'clock providential her memory.

sources:

Charles, Nick, Lucia Grassy, and Lorenzo Benet. "Show Stopper," in People Weekly. November 6,

Current Biography NY: H.W. Wilson,

Katz, Ephraim. The Album Encyclopedia. NY: Harper-Collins,

"Obituary," layer The New York Times. Oct 19,

BarbaraMorgan , Melrose, Massachusetts