Broadway Star Gwen Verdon Dead at 75
N E W Y O R K, Oct. 18, 2000 -- Tony-winning Broadway dancer Gwen Verdon, who overcame polio to develop a unique style thatmade her a show-stopping star of Damn Yankees and SweetCharity, died today, her manager said. She was 75 yearsold.
The flame-haired Verdon, who was the third wife andlongtime collaborator of legendary choreographer and directorBob Fosse, apparently died in her sleep at her daughter’s homein Woodstock, Vt., manager Aaron Shapiro said.
Verdon became an overnight Broadway sensation in 1953 as ashow-stopping featured dancer in Michael Kidd’s production ofCole Porter’s Can Can, a performance that earned the first offour Tony awards.
But it was under Fosse’s choreography and direction thatVerdon created a series of memorable Broadway roles combiningthe sexual allure of a hardened vamp with the inner sweetnessand vulnerability of an ingenue.
Played Sensual, Provocative Characters
She was the original seductress Lola in Damn Yankees, thetaxi dancer Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity and themurderous chorus girl Roxie in Chicago. She got to recreateher Tony-winning Lola role (“Whatever Lola wants, Lola Gets”)in the 1958 movie adaptation of Damn Yankees.
She also won back-to-back Tonys in 1958 and 1959,respectively, for the tough gal roles she originated in NewGirl in Town and Redhead.
Although she played sensual characters on stage, and herdance routines were often provocative, Verdon was not regardedas having the striking beauty needed to become a leading ladyin Hollywood.
“Sex in a dance is in the eyes of the beholder,” she oncesaid. “I never thought my dances sexy. I suppose that’s becauseI see myself with my face washed, and to me I look like arabbit.”
Known to Help Other Sex Symbols
If not a glamour queen herself, Verdon helped bring out thebest in some of the biggest sex symbols in the business. As abackstage assistant on various Hollywood projects during theearly ’50s, she coached such stars as Marilyn Monroe, JaneRussell and Lana Turner in movement.
Her accomplishments as a performer were remarkable in lightof the adversity she faced growing up. Verdon suffered a seriesof childhood illnesses, including a bout of polio that left herwith steel braces on her legs as a youngster and influenced herdancing style, which was later copied by Fosse and others.
She developed a unique hip-swiveling movement that could beboth smoldering and subtle at the same time. Both she andFosse could use the smallest gesture — the flick of a wrist,the jut of the hip or a snap of the head — to convey a grandemotion.
Although she and Fosse eventually separated, Verdoncontinued to work with him as an assistant choreographer anddance supervisor on his 1978 production of Dancin’ and the1987 revival of Sweet Charity. And she was at his side whenhe died during rehearsals for that show. More recently, sheserved as a consultant on the Broadway musical Fosse.
Her daughter, Nicole Fosse, is a dancer who appeared in the1986 film A Chorus Line.
Verdon retired from Broadway in the mid-’70s but returnedto movies in the 1980s and ’90s as a mature, spunky characterin such films as The Cotton Club Cocoon, Woody Allen’sAlice (playing Mia Farrow’s mother) and Marvin’s Room (asthe aunt of Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton).