Biography

Norman Borine was an MGM contract dancer in the 1940s and 1950s and later choreographer.

As a youngster growing up in Buhl, Idaho, Borine (born with the unfortunate last name of Boring) dreamed of a career in Hollywood. After duly completing high school and two years of college to please his parents, he resolved to follow his own dream and hitched a ride to Los Angeles. Borine began taking dance classes with Adolph Bolm while working at odd jobs. It was about five years until he was cast in his first film, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1943), on the recommendation of his teacher Bronislava Njinska (sister of the famed Vaslav Nijinsky). After a few additional films at Universal, Borine was cast in Paramount’s Incendiary Blonde (1945) and was befriended by the film’s star, Betty Hutton. His connection to Hutton led to an introduction to Robert Alton, then one of Broadway’s hottest choreographers who had recently been lured to MGM with a lucrative salary and a permanent company of dancers. Alton offered Borine a seven-year contract (an arrangement that previously had not been extended to dancers), thus assuring his regular employment and appearance in many of the most lavishly-produced musicals of the period. Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) with Judy Garland, Easy to Wed (1946) with Lucille Ball, and the Jane Powell vehicle Rich, Young and Pretty (1951) with Danielle Darrieux are some of the films where he is most easily visible. When not needed for dance numbers at MGM, he was placed in background parts in non-musical films or lent out to other studios; in 1947, he estimated that of the 32 films he had appeared in since signing with MGM, only one third were dance movies. After his contract at MGM expired in 1950, Borine worked as a dance instructor, danced in live theater productions, and continued to appear in films. Borine also began choreographing for television; his most substantial project was as choreographer for Eleanor Powell’s television show The Faith of Our Children (1955). He continued in the entertainment field into the late 1960s, eventually relocating to Palm Springs.
- IMDb mini biography by: G. O. Petersen