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Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross

Directing

Biography

Herbert David Ross was an American actor, choreographer, director and producer who worked predominantly in the stage and film. Ross was born on May 13, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Martha Grundfast and Louis Chester Ross, a postal clerk. At the age of 9, his mother died and his father moved the family to Miami and opened a luncheonette. In 1942, Ross' stage debut came as "Third Witch" in a touring company of Macbeth. The next year brought his first Broadway performance credits with Something for the Boys. By 1950, he was a choreographer with the American Ballet Theatre and choreographed his first Broadway production, the Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields musical adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Ross's first film assignment came as an uncredited choreographer on Carmen Jones (1954). In the UK, he choreographed The Young Ones (1961) and Summer Holiday (1963), both starring Cliff Richard. Later, he worked with Barbra Streisand as choreographer and director of musical numbers for Funny Girl (1968). His film directorial debut came with the musical version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), made by MGM-British, with Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark. He went on to direct films involving ballet, such as The Turning Point (1977), Nijinsky (1980) and Dancers (1987). Other movies of critical acclaim followed in the 1970s and 1980s such as Neil Simon's adaptations of his own plays and film adaptations of Broadway productions through his last project, Boys on the Side (1995).

Known For

Great Performances
6.1

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Great Performances

1971
The Goodbye Girl
6.9

After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.

The Goodbye Girl

1977
Steel Magnolias
7.2

A young beautician, newly arrived in a small Louisiana town, finds work at the local salon, where a small group of women share a close bond of friendship and welcome her into the fold.

Steel Magnolias

1989
Footloose
6.7

When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he's in for a real case of culture shock after discovering he's living in a place where music and dancing are illegal.

Footloose

1984
The Secret of My Success
6.5

Brantley Foster, a well-educated kid from Kansas, has always dreamed of making it big in New York, but once in New York, he learns that jobs - and girls - are hard to get. When Brantley visits his uncle, Howard Prescott, who runs a multi-million-dollar company, he is given a job in the company's mail room.

The Secret of My Success

1987
Undercover Blues
6.1

When fun-loving American agents Jeff and Jane Blue are called back from maternity leave for a special assignment in New Orleans, the spy parents decide to skip the sitter and give their bouncing baby girl the adventure of a lifetime.

Undercover Blues

1993
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
7.7

A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1966
Shirley Maclaine: Kicking Up Her Heels
6.4

Shirley MacLaine was the product of a strict middle-class background from which she and her brother, the future actor Warren Beatty, escaped into the fantasy world of show-biz. Her ballet training and her long-legged pixie charm led to rapid success on Broadway in musical comedy. Inevitably, Hollywood called and by 1955 Shirley was cast in Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry." It wasn't too long before the fine dramatic roles also came to her opposite the most popular leading men of the time, like Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum.

Shirley Maclaine: Kicking Up Her Heels

1996
Soapdish
6.3

Celeste Talbert is the star of the long-running soap opera "The Sun Also Sets." With the show's ratings down, Celeste's ruthlessly ambitious co-star, Montana Moorehead, and the show's arrogant producer, David Seton Barnes, plot to aggravate her into leaving the show by bringing back her old flame, Jeffrey Anderson, and hiring her beautiful young niece, Lori Craven.

Soapdish

1991
Funny Girl
7.2

The life of famed 1930s comedienne Fanny Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of New York, to the height of her career with the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as her marriage to the rakish gambler Nick Arnstein.

Funny Girl

1968
Boys on the Side
6.4

After breaking up with her girlfriend, a nightclub singer, Jane, answers a personal ad from Robin, a real estate agent with AIDS, seeking a cross-country travel partner. On their journey from New York City to Los Angeles, the two stop by Pittsburgh to pick up Jane's friend Holly, who is trying to escape an abusive relationship. With three distinct personalities, the women must overcome their differences to help one another.

Boys on the Side

1995
California Suite
5.8

The misadventures of four groups of guests at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

California Suite

1978
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
6.7

Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

1969
True Colors
6.2

Two law school friends find themselves at odds when one becomes a Justice Department lawyer and the other goes into politics.

True Colors

1991
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
6.2

Concerned about his friend's cocaine use, Dr. Watson tricks Sherlock Holmes into travelling to Vienna, where Holmes enters the care of Sigmund Freud. Freud attempts to solve the mysteries of Holmes' subconscious, while Holmes devotes himself to solving a mystery involving the kidnapping of Lola Deveraux.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

1976
Max Dugan Returns
6.6

An English teacher and struggling single mother has her life disrupted when the father who abandoned her as a child comes back into her life.

Max Dugan Returns

1983
My Blue Heaven
6.1

FBI agent Barney Coopersmith is assigned to protect former Mafia figure turned informant Vincent Antonelli. In the witness protection program one is supposed to keep a low profile, but that is something that Antonelli has trouble doing. Coopersmith certainly has his hands full keeping Antonelli away from the Mafia hitmen who want to stop him testifying, not to mention the nightclubs...

My Blue Heaven

1990
The Sunshine Boys
6.9

Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature a reunion of this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again.

The Sunshine Boys

1975
The Last of Sheila
6.9

A year after Sheila is killed in a hit-and-run, her multimillionaire husband invites a group of friends to spend a week on his yacht playing a scavenger hunt-style mystery game—but the game turns out to be all too real and all too deadly.

The Last of Sheila

1973
Play It Again, Sam
7.5

A neurotic film critic obsessed with the movie Casablanca attempts to get over his wife leaving him by dating again with the help of a married couple and his illusory idol, Humphrey Bogart.

Play It Again, Sam

1972