With Malice Towards Some

Introduction

The first time I saw a dancer execute a cartwheel, I was so impressed I announced “I am going to be a dancer when I grow up.” The first time I saw a tightrope walker perform in a circus, I decided that when I grew up I was going to be a tightrope walker. I forgot all about dancing. I was so excited about that adventure that some of my friends and I found a big old rope in the garage. We attached one end to an elm tree and the other end to one of the eaves of my house. It was quite taut and with umbrella in hand, I did my tightrope-walking act. With my first step out onto the rope, I fell and broke my ankle. I knew right then and there that I was destined to be a dancer.

Curiously enough, when my ankle healed I did study dancing at the local dancing school. I managed to learn a few things, especially from a girl next door who was a very advanced student and a good friend of mine. She would teach me some of the advanced steps that she had learned. High school was very uneventful. I appeared in a play occasionally; however, I was too preoccupied dealing with the agonies of adolescence.

My career started to take shape when I got to college. I enrolled in New York University, not because of its academia, but because it was so close to Broadway – the Valhalla of Show Business. Actually, my major in college was Political Science. In fact, I got a working scholarship in that department. But I spent most of my time with the Dramatic Society, appearing in the plays or directing some of them. Working on the Varsity shows – they were always musicals - was exciting, because I could stage some numbers now and then. But I always managed to get uptown and take a class with an important dancing teacher. The students up there were actually professional dancers who came to class to keep in condition. So I was exposed to that environment of professionalism.

During summer holidays, I would work in summer stock, if I could get a job, or else I would work in one of the summer resorts that had an entertainment staff. It paid well, and also kept me busy in the business I liked.

After college, I auditioned for a musical called On Your Toes and was accepted. I was even given a small part. I was very excited because the choreographer of On Your Toes was the maestro George Balanchine. After On Your Toes, a friend of mine hired me for a play he was directing by Richard Maibaum called Birthright. Although the play was a good one and its anti-Nazi message was important, nobody seemed to worry too much about Hitler until he actually marched into Poland. So the play didn’t have a very long run, but I had a good credit for my resume as “Stage Manager.”

After the show closed, I got a part and danced in Keep Off the Grass. Here again, Balanchine was the choreographer of the show. People thought I was his assistant because I was always by his side. He had difficulty speaking English, so he would tell me things in French and I would translate for him. So he insisted that I stay close to him; and in effect I really was his assistant, albeit an unpaid one.

After that, I went out with the touring company of I Married an Angel, another show that Balanchine had choreographed. I had a dancing role and understudied Burl Ives. I got to know the star of the show, Vivienne Segal, and we became very dear friends and remained so until she died. As for Burl Ives, he went on a drunk when we arrived in California, so I went on for him and took his role for the duration of the run.

I then got a job as Assistant Stage Manager for a musical called Banjo Eyes, which starred Eddie Cantor. We had beautiful showgirls in it. (One of them was Jacqueline Susann, who later wrote the novel Valley of the Dolls, the movie version of which I coincidentally staged.) My job was to supervise the dancers and keep the dance numbers in shape. When we were on the road with the show before we came to Broadway, I had to re-do some of the numbers. My reward was recognition by Hassard Short, the producer of the show. Hassard was also the producer of Irving Berlin’s Music Box Reviews and one of his closest friends.

When Irving Berlin had just finished writing his legendary all-soldiers show This is the Army, he complained to Hassard that he needed a choreographer and where would he find one that was a soldier in the Army? Hassard said “they just drafted Bob Sidney and he’ll do the job for you.” I was a foot soldier in the Army, until Irving Berlin had me transferred to the “This is the Army” outfit. I choreographed and staged the musical numbers for This is the Army, and performed the same duties for the Warner Brothers film version of the show, in which Ronald Reagan played one of the leading roles. So I guess it can be said that the Second World War helped launch my career immeasurably.

After the War, Columbia Pictures signed me to a term contract as choreographer, where I got to work with my idol, Rita Hayworth. From then on it was relatively clear sailing. On Broadway, I staged and choreographed Three to Make Ready, Along Fifth Avenue and several other shows. In Hollywood, I worked on Where the Boys Are, How the West Was Won, Valley of the Dolls, The Opposite Sex and some twelve other films. 

In between all this activity, I staged nightclub acts for Bing Crosby and Family, Mitzi Gaynor, Cyd Charisse and Tony Martin, Betty Hutton, Debbie Reynolds and Joey Heatherton. I was very flattered when asked to stage several of the Academy Award