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Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins
His legendary shows included "Fiddler on the Roof," "The King and I," "West Side Story," "Gypsy," and "Funny Girl," His celebrity colleagues included Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Stephen Sondheim, Natalie Wood, Ethel Merman, and Montgomery Clift. His private demons included sexual and religious conflicts, scandalous betrayals during the McCarthy hearings, and an insane drive for perfection that bordered on the sadistic.
Based on hundreds of interviews with his closest friends and enemies, this groundbreaking biography of "nightmare genius" (Tony Walton) Jerome Robbins, provides the first complete portrait of the man and the artist. It's a harrowing, heartbreaking, and candid look at life backstage.
"Comprehensive and lively." ("Publishers Weekly")
"Contains plenty of dish." ("The Wall Street Journal")
Based on hundreds of interviews with his closest friends and enemies, this groundbreaking biography of "nightmare genius" (Tony Walton) Jerome Robbins, provides the first complete portrait of the man and the artist. It's a harrowing, heartbreaking, and candid look at life backstage.
"Comprehensive and lively." ("Publishers Weekly")
"Contains plenty of dish." ("The Wall Street Journal")
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
640 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 2001
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70 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 24, 2024
Here we have a situation in which evaluation of a work must be split in two. Greg Lawrence has done a masterful - and satisfyingly thorough - five-star job in serving up the life of Jerome Robbins. Problem (largely) is... it's the life of Jerome Robbins. ~ and, to that end, the book merits around a 3.5.
Throughout the biography, we get a non-stop, seesaw depiction of the man. On the one hand, we get a psychotic portrait:
~ and, considering the millions among us who have had (often garden-variety) 'Daddy Issues', that part of the 'argument' doesn't resonate as being all that weighty and life-crushing.
On the non-Mr. Hyde side, Robbins was the preeminent choreographer of his day; largely responsible for making hits out of (among others) 'Fiddler on the Roof', 'Gypsy' and 'West Side Story' (the latter both on Broadway and earning him two Oscars on film). Although the book concedes that, among artistic geniuses, there's no shortage of hotheads, Robbins' nature still comes off as bewilderingly sick (that is, when he wasn't remarkably loving: exhibiting a dual pathology that could maybe only have been cracked if the book had been written by an expert therapist).
Perhaps in a bid for perspective, Lawrence cites choreographer Tommy Tune's reputation for being congenial. But I don't think the point is 'never getting angry'; the point is 'basically being undiagnosed as schizophrenic'. (In the latter part of the book, Lawrence describes the prolonged process - on the part of its creative team - when faced with Robbins' seemingly non-stop rage over not being allowed to direct Bette Midler in her tv-production of 'Gypsy'. By that point, I was just about ready to throw in the towel. It was pathetic.)
A case can be made for Robbins' life in the '50s being unenviable: he was a closeted gay man (the side-portrait of him as 'bisexual' is never particularly believable), Jewish and a socialist who was bizarrely singled-out by the HUAC Committee. He was scared shitless (understandably) and he named some names (apparently not many but it was, of course, enough to even name one name to the McCarthy mob). Still, in the infinitely safer world of theater (as opposed to tv and film), Robbins needn't have been as concerned about being gay or Jewish... it was the turning on colleagues that left him guilt-ridden... even as the accolades for his work more or less never stopped.
The book's final third has a sharp focus on Robbins' eventual (and somewhat international) concentration on ballet work - which didn't personally mean that much to me, and is even more evanescent than musical productions. In writing about dance, having the facts on the page feels less desirable than visuals.
It's not necessary to proclaim that Robbins was The Best of his day (~ though my money's more on Bob Fosse; I've a penchant for quirkiness over athleticism). But Lawrence's sturdy bio is persuasive in its placement of Robbins in an era of considerable cultural shift and artistic advancement. Still, I could easily have done with a lot less of the terrorizing and the certifiable-but-tolerated hysteria.
Throughout the biography, we get a non-stop, seesaw depiction of the man. On the one hand, we get a psychotic portrait:
His driving fear of failure produced work of stunning achievement, but also led him to a perfectionism that many felt bordered on the sadistic (one day, his dancers simply watched as he backed up until he fell down into an open orchestra pit--said one eyewitness, "Nobody said, 'Watch it!' Nope. Off he went."And, because he was seen as a genius in the world of dance, his decidedly dark proclivities were (some might say) criminally given a pass:
"Honestly, I was horrified by a great deal of his life, the things that I learned about him. I thought a number of cruel things had happened to him as a child, and I thought he was enormously sensitive. But I think it produced an unbelievably cruel streak in him, which was definitely there, no question. I don't think he was ever purposefully cruel, but I think it came natural to him sometimes."The rub seems to be in the word 'purposefully'. The bio (to ultimate, unsettling irritation) presents countless examples of Robbins screaming at people and essentially making mincemeat of them - quite often for no real reason other than that he wants to. Since there's never any indication that Robbins' spirit had been invaded by Beelzebub, the documented, appalling behavior sadly reads as being purposefully done.
~ and, considering the millions among us who have had (often garden-variety) 'Daddy Issues', that part of the 'argument' doesn't resonate as being all that weighty and life-crushing.
On the non-Mr. Hyde side, Robbins was the preeminent choreographer of his day; largely responsible for making hits out of (among others) 'Fiddler on the Roof', 'Gypsy' and 'West Side Story' (the latter both on Broadway and earning him two Oscars on film). Although the book concedes that, among artistic geniuses, there's no shortage of hotheads, Robbins' nature still comes off as bewilderingly sick (that is, when he wasn't remarkably loving: exhibiting a dual pathology that could maybe only have been cracked if the book had been written by an expert therapist).
Perhaps in a bid for perspective, Lawrence cites choreographer Tommy Tune's reputation for being congenial. But I don't think the point is 'never getting angry'; the point is 'basically being undiagnosed as schizophrenic'. (In the latter part of the book, Lawrence describes the prolonged process - on the part of its creative team - when faced with Robbins' seemingly non-stop rage over not being allowed to direct Bette Midler in her tv-production of 'Gypsy'. By that point, I was just about ready to throw in the towel. It was pathetic.)
A case can be made for Robbins' life in the '50s being unenviable: he was a closeted gay man (the side-portrait of him as 'bisexual' is never particularly believable), Jewish and a socialist who was bizarrely singled-out by the HUAC Committee. He was scared shitless (understandably) and he named some names (apparently not many but it was, of course, enough to even name one name to the McCarthy mob). Still, in the infinitely safer world of theater (as opposed to tv and film), Robbins needn't have been as concerned about being gay or Jewish... it was the turning on colleagues that left him guilt-ridden... even as the accolades for his work more or less never stopped.
The book's final third has a sharp focus on Robbins' eventual (and somewhat international) concentration on ballet work - which didn't personally mean that much to me, and is even more evanescent than musical productions. In writing about dance, having the facts on the page feels less desirable than visuals.
It's not necessary to proclaim that Robbins was The Best of his day (~ though my money's more on Bob Fosse; I've a penchant for quirkiness over athleticism). But Lawrence's sturdy bio is persuasive in its placement of Robbins in an era of considerable cultural shift and artistic advancement. Still, I could easily have done with a lot less of the terrorizing and the certifiable-but-tolerated hysteria.
July 4, 2014
To put it succinctly, Jerome Robbins was a monster to most of those he worked with and lived with throughout his astonishing career.
He was imperious, quick to take offense, both personally and politically treacherous (he turned on friends and lovers as easily as he turned on his former allies on the Left, naming names freely when he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee). But he was a brilliant choreographer and director; he introduced a modern-day American vernacular into ballet with "Fancy Free" and went on to create, direct, and/or choreograph such Broadway classics as "On the Town," "Peter Pan," "The King And I," The Pajama Game," "Bells Are Ringing", "West Side Story," "Gypsy." and "Fiddler on the Roof," among many others.
Robbins imposed a reign of terror over his productions. Often (like David Merrick) playing creative principals off against each other, he hogged billing and created whole new ways of being credited (the "name in a box" thing was his idea), and generally left a trail of bodies and fresh enemies wherever he went. And it didn't matter who he was taking on: in out-of-town previews of "West Side Story" he re-orchestrated Leonard Bernstein's score while Bernstein removed himself to a bar and got quietly drunk -- and Bernstein was no shrinking violet.
Nevertheless, people -- including those he'd stepped on -- fought to work with him over and over again because he had the golden touch: in addition to the shows listed above, he transformed out-of-town dogs into hits, including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and "Funny Girl." He could see to the center of what was wrong. In Sam Wasson's first-rate biography of Bob Fosse, Wasson tells the story of Robbins coming in (at $10,000 per day) to look at a number Fosse couldn't solve. Fosse had a lot of dancers on the stage and had carefully worked out business for each of them, but it wasn't coming together. Robbins took one look at it, immediately grouped the dancers into threes, and assigned each of them a goal and a unique variation on Fosse's existing choreography. He ran it once, and all the problems were solved. The number went on to be a show-stopper. It took Robbins about three hours.
In his private life, he was capable of spontaneous generosity, but he maintained friendships with very few people. Romantically he was bisexual, leaning toward homosexual, and the book is very good about his relationships, many of which ended in ruin; the one that endured, in off-again, on-again form for decades, was with Montgomery Clift.
One of the things I like best about this book is that Greg Lawrence neither demonizes nor whitewashes his subject, seeking instead to understand him. And I have to say that in the end we understand Robbins' bad behavior much more clearly than we understand where his astonishing talent came from. But I'm not sure we understand that about anyone.
He was imperious, quick to take offense, both personally and politically treacherous (he turned on friends and lovers as easily as he turned on his former allies on the Left, naming names freely when he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee). But he was a brilliant choreographer and director; he introduced a modern-day American vernacular into ballet with "Fancy Free" and went on to create, direct, and/or choreograph such Broadway classics as "On the Town," "Peter Pan," "The King And I," The Pajama Game," "Bells Are Ringing", "West Side Story," "Gypsy." and "Fiddler on the Roof," among many others.
Robbins imposed a reign of terror over his productions. Often (like David Merrick) playing creative principals off against each other, he hogged billing and created whole new ways of being credited (the "name in a box" thing was his idea), and generally left a trail of bodies and fresh enemies wherever he went. And it didn't matter who he was taking on: in out-of-town previews of "West Side Story" he re-orchestrated Leonard Bernstein's score while Bernstein removed himself to a bar and got quietly drunk -- and Bernstein was no shrinking violet.
Nevertheless, people -- including those he'd stepped on -- fought to work with him over and over again because he had the golden touch: in addition to the shows listed above, he transformed out-of-town dogs into hits, including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and "Funny Girl." He could see to the center of what was wrong. In Sam Wasson's first-rate biography of Bob Fosse, Wasson tells the story of Robbins coming in (at $10,000 per day) to look at a number Fosse couldn't solve. Fosse had a lot of dancers on the stage and had carefully worked out business for each of them, but it wasn't coming together. Robbins took one look at it, immediately grouped the dancers into threes, and assigned each of them a goal and a unique variation on Fosse's existing choreography. He ran it once, and all the problems were solved. The number went on to be a show-stopper. It took Robbins about three hours.
In his private life, he was capable of spontaneous generosity, but he maintained friendships with very few people. Romantically he was bisexual, leaning toward homosexual, and the book is very good about his relationships, many of which ended in ruin; the one that endured, in off-again, on-again form for decades, was with Montgomery Clift.
One of the things I like best about this book is that Greg Lawrence neither demonizes nor whitewashes his subject, seeking instead to understand him. And I have to say that in the end we understand Robbins' bad behavior much more clearly than we understand where his astonishing talent came from. But I'm not sure we understand that about anyone.
July 28, 2023
If anything, I think I appreciated author Greg Lawrence's epic, 500-plus page biography of legendary dancer/choreographer/director Jerome Robbins more than I actually enjoyed it. Well-researched, and expertly through, "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" takes the reader on an exhaustive journey through the details and events of Robbins' 79 years on Earth. To an extent, no stone was left unturned. However, it can be argued that in the case of this book, more is less...
In "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins," the author takes great pains to display Robbins' storied history through his early years as a short, slight and sensitive youth who took to dance through the influence of his older sister Sonia. In New York and New Jersey, under the roof of his encouraging mother Lena, his discouraging father Harry, and his dancing sister, Jerome Robbins decided early on that he wanted to study dance. From classes to his first performances, Robbins' displayed an early knack for leading other dancers to his suggested steps.
Naturally, Jerome Robbins' ambition and hunger for knowledge and experience led him to ballet, and his first hit as a choreographer "Fancy Free"...which eventually led to the Broadway smash that Robbins' choreographed "On The Town." Soon enough, Jerome Robbins' became a miracle worker choreographer and fixer for musicals such as "The King and I," "Call Me Madam," "Funny Girl," "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and more. At his peak, Jerome Robbins was both choreographed and directed (or co-directed) some of Broadway's greatest musicals such as "The Pajama Game," "Gypsy," "Peter Pan," "Bells are Ringing" as well as Robbins' two masterworks-"West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof."
Sadly, after 1964's "Fiddler on the Roof," Robbins never returned to Broadway, save for a 1989 retrospective work called "Jerome Robbins' Broadway." A brief foray into Hollywood (for 1961's WEST SIDE STORY movie) did not go as planned, and Robbins' attempt at straight plays yielded mixed results, the director/choreographer never again found the right original work to lead him back to the classic song and dance musicals where he made his mark. Instead, Robbins' returned to, and remained in the world of ballet, content to create and explore under the auspices of George Balanchine's shadow.
As "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" makes abundantly clear, under the umbrella of Balanchine's ballet company, Robbins was free to take his time and create without the necessary evils of the Broadway world of deadlines, collaboration, compromise and all forms of pressure placed upon Jerome Robbins' by others and himself. To a repetitive fault, Greg Lawrence chronicles each and every ballet that Robbins' had staged in his lifetime, with every scenario, every Clive Barnes review.
The author also dives deep into the two things that haunted Jerome Robbins for the majority of his life: his closeted bi-sexuality, and his infamous run-in and collaboration with the horrible red-baiting House Un-American Activity Committee. Greg Lawrence makes a fair argument on both counts, how Robbins' fiercely guarded his private relationships and sexuality, and how this privacy and fear of exposure played a part Jerome Robbins' willingness to testify, and name names.
On the one hand, Greg Lawrence's research and access to Jerome Robbins' family, friends and work associates is very impressive, allowing the reader of "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" to get a well-painted portrait of who Jerome Robbins really was...as a creative genius director-choreographer, a caring and generous friend, a lover of children and dogs, and also a sadistic, morally unsound tyrant who bullied and tormented many a dancer and producer throughout the course of his life. As the author point out, Jerome Robbins was not necessarily evil, it's just that he could not help the way he was...the way he pounced on people's weaknesses, the way he allowed his infantile behavior get the better of him, his inability to communicate his wants and desires to others with love and kindness.
On the other hand, "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" felt much longer than its 500-plus pages. Though the biography shines when discussing the making of this or that hit musical, it drags so very slowly when the book insists upon the repetitive pattern of ballet show-then review, ballet show-then review, ballet show-then review. It just felt endless.
Also, it can be said that I felt somewhat dissatisfied with Greg Lawrence's book not asking the right questions, or more to the point, not further addressing subjects I would have liked to have known about, such as learning of Jerome Robbins' thoughts on rock and roll, specific musicals of the 1980's, as well as his thoughts concerning the 1977 movie THE TURNING POINT. Strangely, the author only mentioned the older bald and bearded character in the film that seems to have mirrored Jerome Robbins...and yet had no mention of the young, unapologetic, cruel and philosophically and physically identical clone of Jerome Robbins that also appears in the film. It's a disappointment, especially since this young character perfectly embodies the Jerome Robbins that is described in Greg Lawrence's book!
"Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" is a mixed-bag of a biography. Takes a long time to get through, though I am glad to have read it. For Greg Lawrence's hard work is all there in the pages, as is the fascinating, controversial and all together brilliant life of the great director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.
In "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins," the author takes great pains to display Robbins' storied history through his early years as a short, slight and sensitive youth who took to dance through the influence of his older sister Sonia. In New York and New Jersey, under the roof of his encouraging mother Lena, his discouraging father Harry, and his dancing sister, Jerome Robbins decided early on that he wanted to study dance. From classes to his first performances, Robbins' displayed an early knack for leading other dancers to his suggested steps.
Naturally, Jerome Robbins' ambition and hunger for knowledge and experience led him to ballet, and his first hit as a choreographer "Fancy Free"...which eventually led to the Broadway smash that Robbins' choreographed "On The Town." Soon enough, Jerome Robbins' became a miracle worker choreographer and fixer for musicals such as "The King and I," "Call Me Madam," "Funny Girl," "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and more. At his peak, Jerome Robbins was both choreographed and directed (or co-directed) some of Broadway's greatest musicals such as "The Pajama Game," "Gypsy," "Peter Pan," "Bells are Ringing" as well as Robbins' two masterworks-"West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof."
Sadly, after 1964's "Fiddler on the Roof," Robbins never returned to Broadway, save for a 1989 retrospective work called "Jerome Robbins' Broadway." A brief foray into Hollywood (for 1961's WEST SIDE STORY movie) did not go as planned, and Robbins' attempt at straight plays yielded mixed results, the director/choreographer never again found the right original work to lead him back to the classic song and dance musicals where he made his mark. Instead, Robbins' returned to, and remained in the world of ballet, content to create and explore under the auspices of George Balanchine's shadow.
As "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" makes abundantly clear, under the umbrella of Balanchine's ballet company, Robbins was free to take his time and create without the necessary evils of the Broadway world of deadlines, collaboration, compromise and all forms of pressure placed upon Jerome Robbins' by others and himself. To a repetitive fault, Greg Lawrence chronicles each and every ballet that Robbins' had staged in his lifetime, with every scenario, every Clive Barnes review.
The author also dives deep into the two things that haunted Jerome Robbins for the majority of his life: his closeted bi-sexuality, and his infamous run-in and collaboration with the horrible red-baiting House Un-American Activity Committee. Greg Lawrence makes a fair argument on both counts, how Robbins' fiercely guarded his private relationships and sexuality, and how this privacy and fear of exposure played a part Jerome Robbins' willingness to testify, and name names.
On the one hand, Greg Lawrence's research and access to Jerome Robbins' family, friends and work associates is very impressive, allowing the reader of "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" to get a well-painted portrait of who Jerome Robbins really was...as a creative genius director-choreographer, a caring and generous friend, a lover of children and dogs, and also a sadistic, morally unsound tyrant who bullied and tormented many a dancer and producer throughout the course of his life. As the author point out, Jerome Robbins was not necessarily evil, it's just that he could not help the way he was...the way he pounced on people's weaknesses, the way he allowed his infantile behavior get the better of him, his inability to communicate his wants and desires to others with love and kindness.
On the other hand, "Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" felt much longer than its 500-plus pages. Though the biography shines when discussing the making of this or that hit musical, it drags so very slowly when the book insists upon the repetitive pattern of ballet show-then review, ballet show-then review, ballet show-then review. It just felt endless.
Also, it can be said that I felt somewhat dissatisfied with Greg Lawrence's book not asking the right questions, or more to the point, not further addressing subjects I would have liked to have known about, such as learning of Jerome Robbins' thoughts on rock and roll, specific musicals of the 1980's, as well as his thoughts concerning the 1977 movie THE TURNING POINT. Strangely, the author only mentioned the older bald and bearded character in the film that seems to have mirrored Jerome Robbins...and yet had no mention of the young, unapologetic, cruel and philosophically and physically identical clone of Jerome Robbins that also appears in the film. It's a disappointment, especially since this young character perfectly embodies the Jerome Robbins that is described in Greg Lawrence's book!
"Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins" is a mixed-bag of a biography. Takes a long time to get through, though I am glad to have read it. For Greg Lawrence's hard work is all there in the pages, as is the fascinating, controversial and all together brilliant life of the great director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.
April 22, 2021
A very comprehensive, if perhaps overly lengthy biography. I knew Robbins primarily through his work at New York City Ballet, and West Side Story, so I enjoyed the part about his youth and learned about his HUAC involvement. I thought that the book flagged a bit in his Broadway period, perhaps because I know little about Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s. The section about City Ballet helped me reconstruct the chronology of Robbins' ballet, which placed some of his works in a new perspective.
July 21, 2012
Biographies -- I've been in the mood, obviously. But why Jerome Robbins? You can sum the guy up in two words: genius asshole -- and really, is that the kind of company you'd care to keep for 640 pages?
July 15, 2014
it took a long time, but I finally finished!
love the stories and different views of Jerome Robbins.
love the stories and different views of Jerome Robbins.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews