About Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd (born Milton Greenwald; August 12, 1915 – December 23, 2007) was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot. He was probably best known for his athletic dance numbers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek called the barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen". He was the first choreographer to win five Tony Awards, and was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1996 for advancing dance in film. == Early life, education, and dance career == Kidd was born in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, a barber, and his wife Lillian, who were Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia. He moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School. He became interested in dance after attending a modern dance performance, and went on to study under Blanche Evan, a dancer and choreographer. He studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York in 1936 and 1937, but left after being granted a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. He toured the country as a member of the corps de ballet of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, and performed in roles that included the lead in Billy the Kid, choreographed by Eugene Loring, which featured an orchestral composition by Aaron Copland.
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