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| Birth Name(s) : Gwen Verdon |
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Full Gwen Verdon Biography
Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon (January 13, 1925 – October 18, 2000) was an acclaimed Tony Award-winning American dancer and actress, known professionally as Gwen Verdon.
Verdon was born in Culver City, California, the second child of Joseph William Verdon (December 31, 1896-June 23, 1978) and Gertrude Lilian Standring (October 24, 1896-October 16, 1956), who were British emigrants to the United States by way of Canada. Her brother was William Farrell Verdon (August 1, 1923-June 10, 1991). The Verdon family could be described as "showpeople." Her father was an electrician at MGM Studios, and her mother was a former vaudevillian of the Denishawn dance troupe, as well as a dance teacher.
As a child, Gwen was afflicted with rickets, leaving her legs so badly misshapen she was called "Gimpy" by other children and spent her early years in orthopedic boots and rigid leg braces. Her mother put three-year-old Gwen in dance classes; ballet training strengthened her legs and improved her carriage.
By age six, the redheaded Gwen was performing on stage as a tap dancer. She went on to study multiple dance forms, ranging from tap, jazz, ballroom and flamenco, to Balinese and juggling. At age 11, she appeared as a solo ballerina in the musical romance film The King Steps Out (1936), directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. She attended Hamilton High School in Los Angeles and also studied under the renowned ballet master, Ernest Belcher. While in high school, she was cast in a revival of Show Boat.
Verdon shocked her parents and instructors when she abandoned her budding career at age 17 to elope with her first husband in 1942. In 1945, she appeared as a dancer in the movie musical The Blonde From Brooklyn. After her divorce, she entrusted her young son, Jimmy, to the care of her parents.
Early on, Verdon found a job as assistant to choreographer Jack Cole, whose work was respected by both Broadway and major Hollywood movie studios. During her five-year employment with Cole, she took small roles in movie musicals as a "specialty dancer". She also gave dance instruction to performers who eventually became stars, such as Jane Russell, Gene Kelly, Fernando Lamas, Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe.
Verdon started out on Broadway as a "gypsy", going from one chorus line to another. Her breakthrough role finally came when she was cast by choreographer Michael Kidd as the second female lead in Cole Porter's musical Can-Can (1953), which starred French prima donna Lilo. Out-of-town reviewers hailed Verdon's interpretation of Eve in the Garden of Eden ballet as a performance that upstaged the show's star, who jealously demanded Verdon's role be cut to only two featured dance numbers. With her role reduced to little more than an ensemble part, Verdon formally announced her intention to quit by the time the show premiered on Broadway. But her opening night Garden of Eden performance was so well-received, the audience screamed her name until the startled actress was brought out of her dressing room in her bathrobe to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay increase and her first Tony Award for her triumphant performance.
She and estranged husband Bob Fosse collaborated on projects like Chicago (1975) (in which she played murderess Roxie Hart) and the musical Dancin' (1978), as well as Fosse's autobiographical movie, All That Jazz (1979). She developed a close working relationship with Fosse's domestic companion, actress Ann Reinking, and instructed for Reinking's musical theatre classes.
After playing Roxie Hart in Chicago, Verdon focused on acting, playing character roles in movies such as The Cotton Club (1984), Cocoon (1985) and Cocoon: The Return (1988). She continued to instruct dance and musical theatre and to act, including receiving three Emmy Award nominations for appearances on Magnum PI (1988), Dream On (1993) and Homicide (1993). Verdon appeared as the Alice's mother in the Woody Allen movie Alice (1990) and as Ruth in Marvin's Room (1996), co-starring Meryl Streep and Hume Cronyn. In 1999, Verdon served as artistic consultant on the stage biography of her late husband's life in theatre, the current stage musical Fosse, and her daughter Nicole received a "special thanks" credit. The show received a Tony for best musical.
Verdon played Alora in the movie Walking Across Egypt (1999) and appeared in the movie Bruno, released in 2000.
Verdon received a total of four Tonys, for Can-Can (1953), Damn Yankees (1955), New Girl in Town (1957) and Redhead (1959), a murder-mystery musical. She also won a Grammy Award for the cast recording of Redhead.
Verdon had two husbands, tabloid reporter James Henaghan (married 1942, divorced 1947) and Bob Fosse (married 1960, his death 1987). She and Henaghan had one son, Jim Henaghan (born 1943); she and Fosse had a daughter, Nicole Fosse (born 1963).
Verdon died quietly in her sleep in 2000 of natural causes at the home of her daughter, Nicole, in Woodstock, Vermont, at the age of 75. At 8:00 pm on the night she died, for the first time in a long time, all the marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in tribute to one of its greatest and brightest stars. |
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