Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse is an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film director, and actor, born on June 23, 1927 - September 23, 1987. He is the son of a Norwegian father and Cyril K. Fosse and Irish-born mother Sara Alice Fosse. He teamed up with Charles Grass, another young dancer, and began a collaboration under the name The Riff Brothers. They toured theatres throughout the Chicago area. After being recruited, Fosse was placed in the variety show Tough Situation, which toured military and naval bases in the Pacific. Fosse moved to New York with the ambition of being the new Fred Astaire. Although Fosse's acting career in film was cut short by typecasting, he was reluctant to move from Hollywood to theatre. Nevertheless, he made the move, and in 1954, he choreographed his first musical, The Pajama Game, followed by George Abbott's Damn Yankees in 1955.  In 1957 Fosse choreographed New Girl in Town, also directed by Abbott, and Verdon won her second Leading Actress Tony. That year he also choreographed the film version of "Pajama Game" starring Doris Day. In 1960, Fosse was, for the first time, both director and choreographer of a musical called simply Redhead.
Fosse earned many awards, including the Tony Award for Pippin and Sweet Charity, the Academy Award for Cabaret and the Emmy Award for Liza with a "Z". He was the first person to win all three awards in the same year (1973). He is also the only person to have won all three awards in the category of "Best Director", along  being a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Fosse was first married from 1949 to 1951 to dance partner Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987). After his first divorce, he remarried in 1952 to dancer Joan McCracken; this marriage lasted until 1959, when it, too, ended in divorce. His third wife was dancer/actress Gwen Verdon. In 1960, they had a daughter, Nicole Providence Fosse, who later also became a dancer/actress. He separated from Verdon in the 1970s, but they remained legally married until his death in 1987. On September 23, 1987, Fosse died from a heart attack at George Washington University Hospital, while the revival of Sweet Charity was opening at the nearby National Theatre.