One singular sensation  – Remembering Ann Reinking

ANN REINKING, who has died aged 71, will be remembered not only for being an exceptional actress, dancer and choreographer but also as a protégée of the director-choreographer Bob Fosse, responsible for furthering his work following his death, and keeping his name and his talent before the public eye. Michael Darvell recalls the life and work of Ann Reinking…

Ann Reinking was not only a much lauded actress and dancer, but she was also an exceptional choreographer and director who won numerous awards for an all-consuming talent that took her from her early days as a ballet student in Seattle to the success of shows on Broadway, on US tours and in Britain, France and Australia, as well as appearances in films and on television.

Growing up in Seattle with her parents, Walter and Frances Reinking, young Ann took to dancing is if to the manner born. She studied with Marian and Illaria Ladre, former dancers with the Ballets Russes, and as early as the age of 12 she made her professional debut with the Royal Ballet in Giselle. While still at school she studied with the San Francisco Ballet on a summer scholarship and later had classes with the Joffrey Ballet in Washington.

A move to New York at age 18 saw her dancing with the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall, followed by appearances in Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ musical Bye Bye Birdie, a 1965 production at the Seattle Opera House, a national tour of Fiddler On the Roof in 1968 and only a year later she made her Broadway debut in Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret.

There was more chorus work in Andre Previn and Alan Jay Lerner’s Coco, with Katharine Hepburn, and then the short-lived (one performance only) of Bob Goodman’s musical Wild and Wonderful. Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin (1972) was directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse who spotted Reinking among the cast and, being highly impressed, decided she was someone out of the ordinary. He took her on as his muse and she also became his romantic partner, even though he was still married to, but separated from, his former muse Gwen Verdon, Fosse’s star of Redhead, Sweet Charity and Chicago.

Reinking herself went on to appear in Chicago (1977) as a replacement for the role of Roxie Hart, and she was then in Fosse’s Dancin’ (1978) and took over the title role in Sweet Charity (1986). Before these shows she worked on the Sherman Brothers’ Over Here! (1974), a wartime nostalgia piece, and played Joan of Arc in Goodtime Charley (1975), with Joel Grey as the Dauphin.

In 1976 Reinking was a replacement for Cassie in Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line, the perfect role for the dancer to exhibit her outstanding terpsichorean skills, not to mention her fantastically long legs. She was part of the Ensemble in Dancin’ which melded together a collection of show music by Romberg, standard songs by Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren, popular tunes by Neil Diamond, Melissa Manchester, Carol Bayer Sager and Louis Prima, Blues numbers by Lieber and Stoller, contemporary music by Edgard Varẻse and rock and roll numbers alongside classical pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.

Bob Fosse died in 1987 but Reinking kept the spirit of the celebrated choreographer-director alive by continuing to appear in and direct revivals of his productions. The 1996 revival of Chicago was “choreographed in the style of Bob Fosse” by Reinking who did the same for the London production in 1997 with Ute Lemper and Ruthie Henshall and it ran for 15 years. She was also the mainstay with Richard Maltby Jr behind Fosse (1998), a revue celebrating Fosse’s choreography, in which she appeared. It won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Orchestrations and Best Lighting Design. Reinking and Richard Maltby were also nominated for Best Direction of a Musical.

When the show came to London, there were Olivier Awards for Reinking and (posthumously) Fosse too for Best Theatre Choreography. Conceived by Maltby, Reinking and Chet Walker, the show included excerpts from Liza with a Z, Sweet Charity, Kiss Me, Kate, Redhead, Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, Chicago, Pippin, Cabaret and Dancin’ etc, in a summation of Fosse’s career. Another shot at Fosse’s life was the film he directed, All That Jazz (1979), a fictionalised fantasy account of his own life in which Ann Reinking played his then current girlfriend which she was in the film and in real life too from 1972 to 1978. Roy Scheider played the part of Fosse, warts and all.

The question is how do you tell a Fosse show from any other production? Well, it’s bound to have a leading lady like Ann Reinking with legs that go up to her neckline. She will do jazz hands at every conceivable moment and will bend her knees inwards. Finally, she will be wearing a bowler hat at an angle, jaunty or otherwise, because you know what they say – “a hat’s not a hat till it’s tilted.”

Other shows that Reinking graced include the title role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown in St Louis, then Melba in Pal Joey and she also did the Broadway tour of Applause and choreographed it too. She played Rose in a tour of Bye Bye Birdie, but much of her later work was taken up with choreography. This included Tommy Tune Tonite!, Kander and Ebb’s The Visit in Chicago, Richard Rodgers’ No Strings at New York City Center, Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s The Look of Love compilation, Here Lies Jenny at the Zipper Theatre in New York, An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, and Chicago in Paris.

Ann Reinking also occasionally appeared on television and in films. She was in Stanley Donen’s spoof of a Hollywood double-bill, Movie Movie, played Grace Farrell in John Huston’s film of the musical Annie and was Micki in Blake Edwards’ Micki + Maude. She produced her own documentary film called In My Hands: A Story of Marfan Syndrome (2009), which was about a genetic disorder of the body’s connective tissue, based on her son Chris Stuart’s experience of the disease.

She was married four times, first to Larry Small, then Herbert A. Allen, James Stuart and Peter Talbot. She was the winner of multiple awards including a Tony for Dancin’ and an Olivier Award in London for Fosse.

Apart from the catalogue of her appearances as a singer and dancer in many successful musicals, Ann Reinking will also be remembered for her work with Bob Fosse and how together the two of them helped to change the face of dance in the Broadway musical. We may never see her like again but her influence will remain with us for ever.

Ann Reinking: 10 November 1949-12 December 2020. R.I.P.