Biography

Jerome Robbins

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Jerome Robbins was one of the founding members of the Ballet Theatre when it was formed in 1940, portraying a variety of roles for several years before devising his own creations, such as 'Fancy Free' (about three sailors on leave in New York, which marked a long association with Leonard Bernstein). With Jerome in one of the leading roles, it opened at the Metropolitan Opera House in April 1944 and quickly established Jerome and Leonard as important talents, particularly when the play was turned into the film 'On the Town'. Among the ballets Jerome staged for the New York City Ballet of which he became company director, are 'Pied Piper','The Cage',and 'Inter Play'. In 1958, he formed his own company, 'Ballets: USA', which did tours of Europe and the Middle East and New York. Several members of the company were in the film West Side Story which Jerome staged fir Broadway, the National Company and in London.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

In May, 1953, Robbins was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He admitted to having belonged to the American Communist Party's Theatrical Transient Group between 1943 and 1947, and also named eight colleagues as members.
The only individual to win the Best Director Academy Award for their sole feature film directorial credit.
Along with Delbert Mann, Robert Redford, James L. Brooks, Kevin Costner and Sam Mendes, he is one of only six people to win the Academy Award for Best Director for their directorial debut: Mann for Marty (1955), Robbins for West Side Story (1961) (which he co-directed with Robert Wise, Redford for Ordinary People (1980), Brooks for Terms of Endearment (1983), Costner for Dances with Wolves (1990) and Mendes for American Beauty (1999).
He was bisexual; he had a relationship with actor Montgomery Clift, but he never married.
It is thought that the reason why Robbins co-operated with the House Un-American Activities Committee was that he was being blackmailed by them; the Committee had obtained love letters that had passed between Robbins and the actor Montgomery Clift and were prepared to make these public if he did not name names.

[on Russian-influenced repertory] Why can't we dance about American subjects? Why can't we talk about the way we dance today, and how we are?
[to Irving Berlin] Give me something to dance about and I'll dance it.

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