--- name: "Jerome Robbins" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jerome-robbins" roles: ["Choreographer","Director"] born: "11 October 1918" died: "29 July 1998" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_over: 0 updated: "2026-09-20T03:52:25.094220+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." --- # Jerome Robbins Choreographer and director. Born 11 October 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 29 July 1998. ## Details - **Work:** Choreographer, Director - **Born:** 11 October 1918, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 29 July 1998 - **Also known as:** Jerome Rabinowitz, Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Robbins, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q353019, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0730385/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18868 ## Coming up - *National Theatre Live: West Side Story* (2028-01-01), Director ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*West Side Story*](https://film.one/film/west-side-story.md) (80) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Jerome Robbins > Jerome Robbins co-directed one film, and it is the reason his name belongs on this page: the Prologue of *West Side Story* (1961), in which a walk down a New York street turns into a leap and nobody on screen seems to notice the change. A boy in a blue T-shirt snaps his fingers. The Jets walk their street in a loose line, the camera down at hip height so the kerb and the brick slide past behind them, and then, with no warning, the walk becomes a leap. Nobody has told us it was coming and nobody on screen behaves as though anything has happened. That is Robbins in a sentence: the dancing is how the story gets told. He spent his working life on Broadway and in the ballet studio and came to the cinema exactly once, sharing the direction of *West Side Story* (1961) with Robert Wise. It is not much of a filmography. It is enough. The career runs almost entirely away from the screen. He danced in Broadway choruses, joined American Ballet Theatre in 1940, and made his name with the ballet *Fancy Free* (1944), which grew into the musical *On the Town*. From 1949 he was at New York City Ballet under George Balanchine while directing and choreographing Broadway shows on the side. In 1957 he conceived, directed and choreographed the stage *West Side Story*, to Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, and the film followed four years later. Afterwards came *Fiddler on the Roof* (1964) for Broadway, *Dances at a Gathering* (1969) for City Ballet, and in 1989 a revue of his own work. Throughout, he put classical ballet technique next to jazz and character dance and pointed all of it at American city life, which is why a gang of boys in a playground can dance without looking foolish. On film, the Prologue is where all of that lands. Bernstein's brass jabs rather than swells under the Jets, the three-note whistle runs through the score like a threat, and Irene Sharaff's faded blue and mustard against the Sharks' purple, red and black means a wide shot tells you who owns the ground before a word is spoken. Daniel L. Fapp keeps the camera low and moving with them. We have seen it many times and it still raises the hair on our arms, because Robbins has made the leap look like the obvious next thing for a boy with that much street in front of him. The film goes slack whenever the dancing stops, and the lovers' scenes need patience. How much of the slack is his and how much belongs to the people who finished the picture we cannot tell from the screen, and will not pretend to. That last point matters. Robbins wanted extended rehearsal and repeated takes, the schedule and the money ran away from him, and he was removed from the film before it was completed. His collaborators found him hard to work for on stage as well. "Give me something to dance about and I'll dance it," he once said, and the film bears him out: where there is something to dance about, it is alive, and where there is not, it waits. He never made another. Given how this one went for everyone involved, we are not sure whether that is a loss or a mercy, but the Prologue alone is more than most directors leave behind. ## Biography Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz) was an American dancer, choreographer, theatre director and film director. He began his career as a dancer in the 1930s and 1940s, performing in Broadway choruses and with Ballet Theatre, before creating his own works and moving into choreography and direction for stage and screen. Robbins is best known for his stage productions including *On the Town*, *The King and I*, *West Side Story* (1957), *Gypsy* and *Fiddler on the Roof*. He co-directed the 1961 film adaptation of *West Side Story* with Robert Wise, for which they shared the Academy Award for Best Director. He received five Tony Awards and the Kennedy Center Honors. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, westsidestory.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *West Side Story* (1961), Fi1m 80, Choreographer, Director, Theatre Play — [page](https://film.one/film/west-side-story.md) ## Complete filmography (17) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *National Theatre Live: West Side Story* (2028), Director - *West Side Story* (2025), Original Concept - *West Side Story* (2021), Theatre Play, Choreographer - *The Cellist / Dances at a Gathering (The Royal Ballet)* (2020), Choreographer - *Miami City Ballet's The Firebird* (2020), Choreographer - *Paris Opera Ballet: Tribute to Jerome Robbins 2* (2018), Set Designer, Choreographer - *The Bolshoi Ballet: A Contemporary Evening* (2017), Choreographer - *Gypsy* (2015), Choreographer - *Paris Opera Ballet: Tribute to Jerome Robbins* (2011), Choreographer - *Gypsy* (1994), Choreographer - *West Side Story* (1961), Director, Theatre Play, Choreographer — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/west-side-story.md) - *Peter Pan* (1960), Writer - *Peter Pan* (1956), Choreographer, Stage Director, Adaptation - *Peter Pan* (1955), Director, Stage Director, Choreographer, Adaptation - *The Ford 50th Anniversary Show* (1953), Director - *On the Town* (1949), Idea - *Ballets: U.S.A.*, Director ## Gallery - ![Jerome Robbins](https://film.one/media/person/1240473/gallery-756b809b569e.jpg) Jerome Robbins — Jerome_Robbins_ca._1968.jpg: studio publicity still. The original uploader was Wikiwatcher1 at English Wikipedia. derivative work: Morn (talk), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Jerome_Robbins_ca._1968_cropped.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of choreographer Jerome Robbins from 1951 program for The King and I. Lacks any copyright notice, so it is no longer under copyright.](https://film.one/media/person/1240473/gallery-b456bb8ee825.jpg) Photo of choreographer Jerome Robbins from 1951 program for The King and I. Lacks any copyright notice, so it is no longer under copyright. — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Jerome_Robbins_1951.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Jerome Robbins](https://film.one/media/person/1240473/gallery-408d503ce2df.jpg) Jerome Robbins — Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Jerome_Robbins.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Tod Bollender en costume pour le ballet The Concert de Jerome Robbins (1960)](https://film.one/media/person/1240473/gallery-f424e3d43c28.jpg) Tod Bollender en costume pour le ballet The Concert de Jerome Robbins (1960) — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Todd_Bolender_in_The_Concert_%281960%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 1 won - 1962: Best Director (won), for *West Side Story* ### Other awards — 7 won, 1 nominated - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical 1989: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (won) - National Medal of Arts 1988: National Medal of Arts (won) - Kennedy Center Honors 1981: Kennedy Center Honors (won) - Capezio Dance Award 1976: Capezio Dance Award (won) - Handel Medallion 1976: Handel Medallion (won) - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical 1965: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (won) - Academy Honorary Award 1962: Academy Honorary Award (won) - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical 1960: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (nominated) *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/jerome-robbins