--- name: "Herbert Ross" canonical: "https://film.one/person/herbert-ross" roles: ["Director"] born: "13 May 1927" died: "9 October 2001" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_fi1m_score: 69 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T06:01:11.273041+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Herbert Ross Director. Born 13 May 1927 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. Died 9 October 2001. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 13 May 1927, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 9 October 2001 - **Active:** 1966–1977 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 4: 2 directing, 2 crew - **Golden Globes:** 1 Golden Globe (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 69, as director, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1960s 78 (2), 1970s 69 (2) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Ross, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q711415, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006889/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18378 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*The Goodbye Girl*](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) (68) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Herbert Ross > Herbert Ross was a choreographer who directed films as if he were staging them: the actors get the stage and the camera keeps its seat. It makes him generous to performers and a plain, sometimes flat, director of everything else, dancing included. In *The Goodbye Girl* (1977) Richard Dreyfuss plays the first night of a Richard III he knows is wrong, and while the audience laughs at him, Ross holds on his face. It is the best moment in the film and it tells you what Ross is for. He puts good actors in a small room, keeps the door shut and waits for something to happen between them. When it does, he knows to stay on it. He came to films from ballet and Broadway, where he had been a dancer and then a choreographer through the 1950s, and he directed his first feature, *Goodbye, Mr. Chips*, in 1969. The peak came in 1977, when *The Turning Point* and *The Goodbye Girl* arrived in the same year: the first a ballet drama he made with the producer Nora Kaye, the second one of five Neil Simon adaptations he would direct, a run that began with *The Sunshine Boys* (1975). He worked repeatedly with the producer Ray Stark and three times with Barbra Streisand. Later came *Footloose* (1984) and *Steel Magnolias* (1989), and he kept working into the mid-1990s. What works is the actors, and particularly the women. Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine get two proper parts in *The Turning Point*, and the film is at its best when the pair of them are arguing about the lives they chose. Ross put it down to his years in ballet: "I spent all those years in ballet, and as Balanchine said, ballet is woman. I'm used to perceiving women as independent and often more than our equals." Marsha Mason in *The Goodbye Girl* is handed a colder character and a harder job, and the film does not quite rescue her. Dreyfuss, though, makes Simon's wisecracks sound like a man thinking, which is rarer than it sounds. What does not work is the camera. In *The Turning Point*, Robert L. Surtees shoots the ballets front on from the stalls and William H. Reynolds cuts inside the variations, so a jump begins in one shot and lands in another. A choreographer of all people should know that a dance has a shape, and Ross gives us a well-lit record instead. We came away from that film irritated, and a little sad, because the man who made it knew better than anyone in the building what we were missing. The same habit runs through the Simon films: rooms, doors, people answering back, and a director content to let the writing do the work. When he tried something more stylised, in *Pennies from Heaven* (1981), audiences were puzzled, and critics were not sure what to make of it either. Start with the two 1977 films and watch them for the faces. The dancing you will have to imagine. The dancers, tired and cross and coming off stage, he gets right. ## Biography Herbert Ross (1927–2001) was an American director, producer, choreographer and actor who worked in theatre and film. He began as a dancer and choreographer, with early credits including Broadway productions and uncredited work on the film *Carmen Jones* (1954). He later choreographed for films including *Funny Girl* (1968). Ross made his feature directorial debut with *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1969). He directed and produced *The Turning Point* (1977) and directed *The Goodbye Girl* (1977). He collaborated frequently with playwright Neil Simon on screen adaptations including *The Sunshine Boys* (1975), *California Suite* (1978) and others. Later films include *Footloose* (1984) and *Steel Magnolias* (1989). For *The Turning Point*, Ross received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture (as producer), and won the Golden Globe for Best Director. *Sources: latimes.com, en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) ### Directed (2) — the average rests on these - *The Goodbye Girl* (1977), Fi1m 68, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) - *The Turning Point* (1977), Fi1m 70, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-turning-point.md) ### Crew (2) - *Funny Girl* (1968), Fi1m 70, Choreographer — [page](https://film.one/film/funny-girl.md) - *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* (1966), Fi1m 86, Choreographer — [page](https://film.one/film/whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf.md) ## Complete filmography (35) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Poster Boy* (2004), Producer - *Boys on the Side* (1995), Director, Producer - *Undercover Blues* (1993), Director, Executive Producer - *Soapdish* (1991), Executive Producer - *True Colors* (1991), Director, Producer - *My Blue Heaven* (1990), Director, Producer - *Steel Magnolias* (1989), Director - *Dancers* (1987), Director - *The Secret of My Success* (1987), Director, Producer - *Protocol* (1984), Director - *Footloose* (1984), Director - *Max Dugan Returns* (1983), Producer, Director - *I Ought to Be in Pictures* (1982), Director, Producer - *Pennies from Heaven* (1981), Director, Producer - *Nijinsky* (1980), Director - *California Suite* (1978), Director - *The Goodbye Girl* (1977), Director — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) - *The Turning Point* (1977), Director, Producer — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/the-turning-point.md) - *The Amazing Miss Cummings: An Actress at Work and Play* (1977), Actor - *The Seven-Per-Cent Solution* (1976), Director, Producer - *The Sunshine Boys* (1975), Director - *Funny Lady* (1975), Director - *The Last of Sheila* (1973), Director, Producer - *Play It Again, Sam* (1972), Director - *T.R. Baskin* (1971), Director - *The Owl and the Pussycat* (1970), Director - *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1969), Director - *Funny Girl* (1968), Choreographer — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/funny-girl.md) - *This is Streisand* (1968), Actor - *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* (1966), Choreographer — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/film/whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf.md) - *Inside Daisy Clover* (1966), Choreographer - *The Fantasticks* (1964), Choreographer - *The Bacchantes* (1961), Choreographer - *Meet Me in St. Louis* (1959), Choreographer - *Wonderful Town* (1958), Director ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 2 nominated - 1978: Best Director (nominated), for *The Turning Point* - 1978: Best Picture (nominated), for *The Turning Point* ### Golden Globes — 1 won - 1977: Best Director (won), for *The Turning Point* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/herbert-ross