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(b New York, NY, July 4, 1887; d Encino, CA Feb 29, 1944). American choreographer, director, and producer. He was a choreographer and dance director of Broadway musicals in the 1920s and 30s. He also directed several shows on Broadway before moving exclusively into choreographing early Hollywood film musicals. He began staging musical numbers on Broadway in 1926 with the musical Kitty’s Kisses. The long list of Broadway musicals he choreographed includes Good News (1927), George and Ira Gershwin’s Funny Face (1927), Sigmund Romberg’s The New Moon (1928), and The Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 and 1934. His first directing opportunity came with the stage musical Princess Charming in 1930, which, like The Ballyhoo of 1932, was one of a handful he also produced. He first worked as a dance director for film on Moonlight and Pretzels (1933), which was shot in New York. He then served as choreographer, dance director, or musical stager on a series of films for Warner Bros. and then MGM in California, most famously ...

(b Paris, France, c1762; d Washington, DC, April 11, 1841). American dancing master, choreographer, and composer of dance music. He was born into a family named Landrin with close connections to the court of Louis XVI. He was a pupil of Maximilien Gardel (1741–87), and for six years he was dancing master for the Paris Opéra. He left Paris three days after the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and arrived in Philadelphia in mid-1790. He changed his name, placing advertisements for his dancing schools as Mr. De Duport. Chiefly a choreographer and teacher of social dancing, Duport blended amateur and professional dancing with theatrical standards of content and performance. He wrote music and created hornpipes and other solo dances for his students, as well as duos such as figured minuets, allemandes, and waltzes; group dances, including complex French contredanses, cotillions, and English country dances; and ballets for his classes to perform at recitals. A music copybook in Duport’s hand traces his creative career from ...

[Franziska]

Member of Elssler family

(b Vienna, June 23, 1810; d Vienna, Nov 27, 1884). Austrian dancer, daughter of Johann Elssler. She ranks with Maria Taglioni and Carlotta Grisi among the legendary prima ballerinas of the Romantic ballet. She made her début in Vienna at the Kärntnertortheater and in 1824 went to Italy for further training. In Naples she learnt to apply dramatic expression to the dance. After her first great successes in Berlin (1830) and a short stay in London, she and her sister Therese were engaged by the Paris Opéra in 1834. There, amid both feud and enthusiasm, she succeeded Taglioni. She celebrated unparalleled triumphs in America (1840–42), and returned to tour the capitals of Europe with equal success. She brought her strong, passionate temperament from pure ballet into character dancing. As a leading stage dancer, she adopted elements of Spanish folklore, her ...

French family of dancers and ballet-masters.

Gardel, Claude (d Paris, 1774)

Gardel, Maximilien Léopold Philippe Joseph (b Mannheim, Dec 18, 1741; d Paris, March 11, 1787)

Gardel, Pierre Gabriel (b Nancy, Feb 4, 1758; d Paris, Oct 18, 1840)

Member of Gardel family

(b Nancy, Feb 4, 1758; d Paris, Oct 18, 1840). French dancer, son of Claude Gardel. In 1771 he entered the Opéra, where his elder brother was largely responsible for his training. He quickly became one of the best pupils of the Ecole de Danse, and soon after his début in 1774 reached the ranks of the leading dancers. In 1783 he became his brother’s assistant. In 1786 the brothers produced the ballet Les sauvages, for which they also wrote the music. On his brother’s death in 1787 Pierre was appointed ballet-master, a post he held for over 40 years with many successes both as dancer and as choreographer. Two of his best-known ballets were produced in 1790, Télémaque anns l’île de Calypso and Psyché; the latter remained in the repertory until 1829, reaching over 1150 performances. During the Revolution Gardel choreographed Le jugement de Paris...

Austrian family of dance music composers and musicians of Hungarian origin. Through a combination of melodic invention and masterly orchestral technique, allied to an astute sense of the commercial, they elevated 19th-century popular music, and especially the Viennese Waltz, to a consummate form.

Strauss, Johann (i) (b Vienna, March 14, 1804; d Vienna, Sept 25, 1849)

Strauss, Johann (ii) (b Vienna, Oct 25, 1825; d Vienna, June 3, 1899)

Strauss, Josef (b Vienna, Aug 20, 1827; d Vienna, July 22, 1870)

Strauss, Eduard (i) (b Vienna, March 15, 1835; d Vienna, Dec 28, 1916)

Strauss, Johann (iii) (b Vienna, Feb 16, 1866; d Berlin-Schöneberg, Jan 9, 1939)

Strauss, Eduard (ii) (b Vienna, March 24, 1910; d Vienna, April 6, 1969)