But he hit the jackpot in 1950, when Frank Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls,” one of the theater’s greatest musicals, opened on Broadway. Harburg fantasy that mixed social significance with an oversize leprechaun. His initial effort as a Broadway choreographer was “Finian’s Rainbow,” the Burton Lane-E. Though he had been hailed as one of the great hopes of postwar American ballet, he never returned to a dance company. Kidd abandoned ballet for the Broadway musical. Kidd to Broadway, saying his gifts leaned more toward entertainment than poetic expression. Soon he became a member of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, touring the country and dancing many roles, including the lead in “Billy the Kid.”Įdward Denby of The New York Herald Tribune predicted that “On Stage!” would take Mr. In 19, he attended City College of New York, intending to be a chemical engineer, but in mid-1937 he received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. While still at New Utrecht High School, he attended a modern-dance performance, was hooked, and began to study with Blanche Evan.
Michael Kidd, whose birth name was Milton Greenwald, was born in Manhattan, the son of an immigrant barber, Abraham Greenwald, and his wife, Lillian. Kidd’s signature was “characterization through energy, epitomized by a lovesick male clan going courting with an acrobatic challenge dance” in “Seven Brides.”
He defined his choreography as “human behavior and people’s manners, stylized into musical rhythmic forms.”Īnna Kisselgoff, the former chief dance critic of The New York Times, wrote that Mr. “I always use real-life gestures, and most of my dancing is based on real life,” Mr.