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People named Jerome Robbins
Below are 17 people with the first name Jerome and the last name Robbins. Try the Robbins Family page if you can't find a particular Collaborative Biography in your family tree.
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17 Jerome Robbins Biographies
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Jerome Robbins of Haddonfield, Camden County, NJ was born on October 16, 1920, and died at age 72 years old on July 11, 1993.

Jerome S Robbins of Elmhurst, Queens County, NY was born on March 23, 1907 in Manhattan County, and died at age 77 years old in January 1985.


Jerome Robbins
Born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz
October 11, 1918
Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Died July 29, 1998 (aged 79)
Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Occupation Theater producer, director, dancer, choreographer
Years active 1937–1998
Awards Full list
Jerome Robbins (October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American choreographer, director, dancer, and theater producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Among his numerous stage productions were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof. Robbins was a five-time Tony Award-winner and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story.
A documentary about Robbins‘ life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage, and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered on PBS in 2009 and won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award the same year.
Early life
Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway on Manhattan's Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. He was the son of Lena (Rips) and Harry Rabinowitz.
The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th Street at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to those close to him, Robbins was given the middle name Wilson reflecting his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president, Woodrow Wilson.
In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. His father and uncle opened the Comfort Corset Company in Union City. The family had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners. In the 1940s, their name was legally changed to Robbins.
Robbins began studying modern dance in high school with Alys [CK] Bentley, who encouraged her pupils to improvise steps to music. Said Robbins later: "What gave me immediately was the absolute freedom to make up my own dances without inhibition or doubts." After graduation, he went to study chemistry at New York University (NYU) but dropped out after a year for financial reasons, and to pursue dance full-time. He joined the company of Senya Gluck Sandor, a leading exponent of expressionistic modern dance; it was Sandor who recommended that he change his name to Robbins. Sandor also encouraged him to take ballet, which he did with Ella Daganova; in addition, he studied Spanish dancing with Helen Veola; Asian dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schonberg. While a member of Sandor's company Robbins made his stage debut with the Yiddish Art Theater, in a small role in [The Brothers Ashkenazi].
Career
1930s and 40s
Robbins in Three Virgins and a Devil, 1941
In 1937 Robbins made the first of many appearances as a dancer at Camp Tamiment, a resort in the Poconos known for its weekly Broadway-style revues; he also began dancing in the choruses of such Broadway shows as Great Lady and Keep Off the Grass, both choreographed by George Balanchine. Robbins had also begun creating dances for Tamiment's Revues, some comic (featuring the talents of Imogene Coca and Carol Channing), and some dramatic, topical, and controversial. One such dance, later also performed in New York City at the 92nd Street Y, was Strange Fruit, set to the song performed by Billie Holiday.
In 1940, Robbins joined Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the title role in Petrouchka, the Youth in Agnes de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil, and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet; and coming under the influence of the choreographers Michel Fokine, Antony Tudor, and George Balanchine.
Robbins created and performed in Fancy-Free, a ballet about sailors on liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. One of Fancy-Free's inspirations was Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting The Fleet's In! However, Robbins's scenario was more lighthearted than the painting. Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor: "After seeing...Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town." Robbins commissioned a score for the ballet from the then-unknown Leonard Bernstein and enlisted Oliver Smith as a set designer. With Fancy-Free, Robbins created a dance that integrated classic ballet, 1940s social dancing, and a screwball plotline.
Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy-Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and the director was the Broadway legend, George Abbott. Because Robbins, as a choreographer, insisted that his chorus reflect the racial diversity of a New York City crowd, On the Town broke the color bar on Broadway for the first time. Robbins' next musical was the jazz age fable Billion Dollar Baby (1945), and during rehearsals, for the show, an incident happened that became a part of Robbins – and Broadway – lore: the choreographer, preoccupied giving directions to the dancers, backed up onstage until he fell into the orchestra pit. Two years later, he received plaudits for his humorous Mack Sennett ballet in High Button Shoes (1947) and won his first Tony Award for choreography. That same year, Robbins would become one of the first members of New York's newly formed Actors Studio, attending classes held by founding member Robert Lewis three times a week, alongside classmates such as Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, Sidney Lumet, and about 20 others. In 1948 he added another credit to his resume, becoming co-director as well as choreographer for Look Ma, I'm Dancin'!; and the year after that teamed with Irving Berlin to choreograph Miss Liberty.
While he was forging a career on Broadway, Robbins continued to work in ballet, creating a string of inventive and stylistically diverse works including Interplay, to a score by Morton Gould, and Facsimile, to music by Leonard Bernstein, a ballet that was banned in Boston [CK]. In 1949 Robbins left Ballet Theatre to join George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein's newly formed New York City Ballet as Associate Artistic Director. Soon after that, he choreographed The Guests, a ballet about intolerance.

Jerome Robbins of Traverse City, Grand Traverse County, Michigan was born on April 10, 1910, and died at age 56 years old in June 1966.

Jerome Robbins of San Diego, San Diego County, CA was born on May 10, 1908, and died at age 93 years old on September 26, 2001.

Jerome N Robbins of Skokie, Cook County, IL was born on February 13, 1928, and died at age 69 years old on November 15, 1997.

Jerome Robbins of Springfield, Clark County, Ohio was born on June 3, 1915, and died at age 72 years old in September 1987.

Jerome Lee Robbins of Washington, District of Columbia County, District Of Columbia was born on February 8, 1950, and died at age 61 years old on February 22, 2011.

Jerome E Robbins was born on September 9, 1898, and died at age 92 years old on November 23, 1990. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Jerome E Robbins.

Jerome Robbins of Millbury, Wood County, OH was born on September 2, 1920, and died at age 88 years old on May 26, 2009.

Jerome Robbins of New York, New York County, NY was born on October 11, 1918, and died at age 79 years old on July 29, 1998.

Jerome W Robbins of New Canaan, Fairfield County, CT was born on July 26, 1925, and died at age 69 years old on April 15, 1995.

Jerome Robbins was born on November 18, 1942, and died at age 30 years old in September 1973. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Jerome Robbins.

Jerome Robbins of Boynton Beach, Palm Beach County, FL was born on February 15, 1919, and died at age 86 years old on June 30, 2005.

Jerome Robbins of Arcadia, Los Angeles County, CA was born on July 13, 1905 in Manhattan County, NY, and died at age 80 years old in March 1986.

Jerome Robbins of North Bergen, Hudson County, NJ was born on January 1, 1899, and died at age 68 years old in March 1967.
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Jerrell Robbins (Born c. 1948)
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Jerrinell Robbins
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Jerusha Robbins
Jess Robbins
Jesse Robbins
Jessica Robbins
Jessie Robbins
Jethro Robbins (Mar 9, 1916 - Aug 20, 1990)
Jetter Robbins (Jan 1, 1896 - May 15, 1975)
Jettie Robbins
Jewel Robbins
Jewell Robbins
Jewyl Robbins (Jul 28, 1899 - Oct 1978)
Jezreel Robbins (Born c. 1979)
Jhakeesha Robbins (Born c. 1983)
Jhan Robbins (Nov 9, 1919 - Sep 27, 1996)
Jian Robbins (Born c. 1962)
Jill Robbins
Jillene Robbins (Jun 18, 1953 - Mar 1981)
Jim Robbins
Jimmie Robbins
Jimmy Robbins
Jimmye Robbins
Jina Robbins (Born c. 1957)
Jippie Robbins (May 12, 1882 - Jul 15, 1968)
Jo Robbins
Joan Robbins
Joann Robbins
Joanna Robbins
Joanne Robbins
Jobe Robbins (Jul 30, 1896 - Feb 15, 1968)
Jocelyn Robbins (Born c. 1958)
Joddie Robbins
Jodi Robbins
Jodice Robbins (Sep 17, 1950 - Jul 29, 2004)
Jodie Robbins
Jody Robbins
Joe Robbins
Joeab Robbins (Aug 13, 1883 - Dec 1973)
Joel Robbins
Joeseph Robbins (Born c. 1991)
Joey Robbins
Johann Robbins (May 20, 1938 - Aug 10, 2011)
Johanna Robbins
Johm Robbins (Nov 12, 1901 - Nov 1967)
John Robbins
Johnathan Robbins (Oct 8, 1985 - Aug 29, 2008)
Johney Robbins
Johni Robbins (Born c. 1973)
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Johnny Robbins
Johnson Robbins (Mar 2, 1920 - Mar 1972)
Joleen Robbins (Jun 14, 1952 - Sep 26, 2010)
Jommie Robbins (Aug 7, 1907 - Aug 1971)
Jon Robbins
Jonathan Robbins
Jonathon Robbins (Mar 7, 1988 - Apr 28, 2010)
Jonna Robbins (Born c. 1986)
Jonnie Robbins
Jordan Robbins
Jory Robbins (Born c. 1986)
Josalyn Robbins (Mar 4, 1893 - Oct 1973)
Josefina Robbins
Josepaus Robbins (Jul 21, 1886 - Apr 1975)
Joseph Robbins
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