Word: verdon
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DIED. GWEN VERDON, 75, Broadway's first lady of dance and winner of four Tony Awards; in Woodstock, Vt. She married choreographer Bob Fosse in 1960 and had one of her greatest successes as Roxie Hart in his production of Chicago. The two separated in 1971 but never divorced (see Eulogy below...
Aside from being the best American dancer-actress of the 20th century, GWEN VERDON, in every cell of her body, held the moves and spirit of her great collaborator, Bob Fosse. In her 70s, Gwen created the musical Fosse, willing his work into immortality through new dancers, not so much teaching as illuminating them, lighting each like a candle, startling and inspiring with a sudden and impossible whirl, a back-arched, hip-winked, sly-smiled thrust of her hands in which each finger had a job and a mind of its own, not so much defying time and gravity...
Things that made my father happy: Perry Mason; any Broadway musical starring Gwen Verdon; fishing for blues with doctor cronies off Montauk, on New York's Long Island; Corona Corona cigars; a straw skimmer hat; Herman Wouk. Things that drove him up the wall: misinformation about medicine in movies or on TV; strangers calling him by his first name; my frequent playing of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell on You; and me, at least before I achieved...
...largely responsible for shaping the production and is billed as its director, while Chet Walker "re-created" the choreography. All three share credit for having "conceived" the show, which originated five years ago in a series of classes on Fosse's dance style taught by Walker and Gwen Verdon, Fosse's ex-wife and the original star of many of his most successful shows (Sweet Charity, Chicago). Exactly who did exactly what will surely be the subject of endless journalistic postmortems, but in the end it doesn't matter. Fosse is all Fosse. No one else could have dreamed...
...Marvin (Hume Cronyn), who sucks the ink off Yahtzee dice, hasn't uttered a coherent word in years. His sister Ruth (Gwen Verdon) is so devoted to soap operas that she dons a formal gown when her favorite characters wed. His daughter Lee (Meryl Streep), who smokes all the time, has no talent for raising kids. Just look at her son Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), with his pathological fear of apologizing to people he's hurt. Fortunately, Lee's sister Bessie (Diane Keaton) is around. She has taken care of her dad for 20 years. But no good deed goes unpunished...