Jerome Robbins Dead At 79

He brought American exuberance to both the ballet stage and the musical theater, reports CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason. Jerome Robbins became a legend long ago. The choreographer and director whose career carried him between the Broadway of West Side Story and ballet classics like Fancy Free, died Wednesday. He was 79.

He died at his Manhattan home after having suffered a stroke Saturday, said Steve Miller, a spokesman for the New York City Ballet.

Robbins was a giant in both worlds, equally at home in the City Ballet, where he created most of his more than 50 ballets, and in the musical theater where he choreographed and-or directed such diverse works as Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, The Pajama Game and Peter Pan.

Robbins had a reputation as a stern taskmaster, a perfectionist who never accepted second-best from anyone.

"I'm enormously demanding," he once said. "I ask for a great deal, but no more than I give myself."

His first great success came in 1944 with his first ballet Fancy Free, which had music by a young composer named Leonard Bernstein. The wartime tale of three sailors on a 24-hour leave in Manhattan was embraced by both the critics and audiences.

With the addition of a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and under the direction of George Abbott, Fancy Free evolved into a Broadway musical, On the Town.

The success of On the Town, which also opened in 1944, propelled Robbins into more jobs on Broadway. He created the dances for such shows as Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, Look Ma, I'm Dancin' (which he also directed) and Miss Liberty.

In the 1950s, he choreographed such hits as Call Me Madam, The King and I, Wonderful Town, The Pajama Game, Peter Pan and Bells Are Ringing, the last co-choreographed with Bob Fosse.

But his greatest masterpiece was still to come. In 1957, he conceived, directed and choreographed West Side Story, a modern-day version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, its dynamic dances dramatizing the tragedy of gang warfare in New York.

With music by Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Arthur Laurents, the musical later became the landmark 1961 film.

Among its ten Oscars were two to Robbins, for best director (shared with Robert Wise, the first time the best-direction Oscar went to dual winners) and best choreographer. As Rosalind Russell presented the directing award to Robbins, she said, Jerome, I told you!

Robbins ended the '50s with another musical theater milestone directing and choreographing Gypsy, the backstage saga of a young Gypsy Rose Lee and her domineering mother, played by Ethel Merman.

The choreographer also built a reputation as a "play doctor," coming ito help musicals that were in trouble prior to their New York opening.

His most notable success was restaging the opening number of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, dropping a simpering love song and adding Comedy Tonight which set the proper tone for the raucous, ribald musical.

Yet Robbins' longest Broadway run occurred in the 1960s with arrival of Fiddler on the Roof in 1964. Taken from Sholem Aleichem's tales of Jewish peasant life in Russia, Fiddler which starred Zero Mostel as the philosophical milkman, Tevye, became one of Broadway's biggest hits, running 3,242 performances.

It was then that Robbins disappeared from Broadway, not surfacing again until 1989 when Jerome Robbins' Broadway, a collection of his musical theater choreography, arrived. Despite an 18-month run, it was not a financial success.

Throughout his Broadway career, Robbins worked in ballet. Robbins had joined the New York City Ballet in 1949 as associate artistic director with George Balanchine. For the troupe, he created The Cage in 1951, Afternoon of a Faun and Fanfare in 1953 and the hilarious The Concert in 1956, among others.

From 1958 through 1962, Robbins had his own company, Ballets U.S.A., which toured to acclaim in Europe and America. And in 1981 his Jerome Robbins Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.

After Fiddler, Robbins choreographed Les Noces in 1965 and Other Dances in 1976 for American Ballet Theater. But he dedicated most of his energies to creating ballets for the New York City Ballet.

Some of the audience favorites were Dances at a Gathering (1969), The Goldberg Variations (1971), Watermill, starring Edward Villella (1972), Gershwin Concerto (1982), Glass Pieces (1983), In Memory of ... (1985) and Ives, Songs (1988). In January 1977, the New York City Ballet gave the premiere of his Brandenburg.

That drive that brought Robbins worldwide fame was evident from the beginning of his professional life. Robbins was born Jerome Rabinowitz, Oct. 11, 1918, in New York, the son of a corset manufacturer. He grew up in Weehawken, N.J., and later attended New York University, but he deserted college to find his way in dance.

In the late 1930s, Robbins appeared in the choruses of several Broadway musicals and worked as a choreographer at the famed Camp Tamiment in Pennsylvania, a training ground for young artists. In 1940, he joined a newly formed dance troupe, Ballet Theater, later to be known as American Ballet Theater.

At Ballet Theater, Robbins quickly graduated from the chorus to larger roles.

Robbins is survived by a sister, Sonia Cullinen; a niece; and a nephew. The funeral service will be private, and a memorial service will be announced later.

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