Michael Kidd (August 12, 1915 – December 23, 2007) was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, who was strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.

He was probably best known for his athletic dance numbers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical, and for choreographing Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the "Girl Hunt Ballet" and "Dancing in the Dark" numbers in the 1953 musical film The Band Wagon. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek called the barn-raising sequence in Seven Brides "one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen". He was the first choreographer to win five Tony Awards, and was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 1996 for advancing dance in film.

Biography

Kidd died of cancer at the age 92 at his home in Los Angeles, California. His marriage to the dancer Mary Heater in 1945 ended in divorce. At his death he was survived by his wife Shelah Hackett, whom he married in 1969, two daughters from his first marriage and a son and daughter from his second.

Kidd was the uncle of filmmaker and political activist, Robert Greenwald. His older brother was Harold Greenwald, a prominent psychotherapist and best-selling author of the 1958 book The Call Girl, who was an expert in the study of prostitution.

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