The Genius Behind The Genius
Gwen Verdon has gone down in history as the muse of legendary Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, but that isn’t even half her story. Not only did Verdon’s contributions to dance go far deeper than mere arm candy, but behind the velvet curtain, her life—and marriage—was filled with scandal and tragedy.
1. She Had A Horrible Illness
A Californian by birth, Verdon looked destined for Hollywood from a young age. Nothing could be further from the truth. When she was just a toddler in the 1920s, she was plagued by rickets, a condition that softens the bones. This led to immense heartbreak.
2. Children Made Fun Of Her
Because of her rickets, Gwen Verdon had to wear orthopedic boots and unsightly leg braces growing up, and the children of the neighborhood noticed in a cruel way: they started calling the young girl “Gimpy”.
It wasn’t an auspicious beginning for a woman famed for dancing. Until, that is, a twist of fate hit.
3. Her Mother Tried To Help Her
When Verdon was just three years old, her mother signed her up for dance classes, including some ballet classes. It was likely to help the girl strengthen and maybe even enjoy movement of her body, but this had unintended consequences.
4. She Was A Natural Talent
Gwen Verdon took to the dance classes like a duck to water, and by the time she was six years old she was performing on stage. In the following years, she picked up an array of dance styles from jazz to ballroom, and even tried her hand at juggling.
With this skill set, she didn’t stay an amateur for long.
5. She Was A Child Star
When she was 11, Verdon already had her first film credit, appearing as a dancer in Josef von Sternberg’s The King Steps Out. In high school, she also got cast in a revival of the musical Show Boat.
The name Gwen Verdon was poised to be put in lights—but this wasn’t actually a good thing.
6. She Had A Momager
After getting a glimpse of her daughter’s talent, Verdon’s mother wanted more, always more, and she began finagling the young girl into shows that were much too adult for her. She managed this shady goal with one vicious trick.
7. Her Mother Told Lies
With an appalling unconcern for her own daughter, Verdon’s mother would often get her into acts requesting an adult girl generally by lying about her age. One such venue was the Florentine Gardens, in “The Girl in Gold” act. The details are downright disturbing.
8. Her Mother Pushed Her To Do Horrible Things
For “The Girl in Gold,” Verdon’s mother would dress her in what amounted to underwear, before slathering the 16-year-old in “gold powder and glycerine”. She would then be “presented before a house of loud and angry men”.
With a twisted set-up like this, it’s no surprise it all unraveled.
9. Her Parents Made A Creepy Proposal
In 1942, when Gwen Verdon was at the top of her game at just 17 years old, her parents made a strange request: They insisted she marry the much-older family friend James Henaghan, a theater critic. But their reasons were utterly scandalous.
10. She Was A Teen Mother
As it turned out, Henaghan had already seduced the teenage girl, and Verdon was now pregnant with their child. Her middle-class parents, desperate to preserve some of their dignity, saw nuptials as the only way forward.
Young and trapped, Verdon gave in and walked down the aisle. But it wasn’t just her freedom she lost.
11. She Gave It All Up Before It Started
After she became a mother to son Jimmy, Verdon all but gave up her promising dance career in order to raise the boy alongside her new husband. But behind this domestic, white-picket-fence image. Things were much darker than all that.
12. Her Husband Was A Mess
Gwen Verdon was extremely secretive about her first marriage for much of her life, and the reason why is chilling. She wanted to protect her son from the truth: Namely, Henaghan was a horrific drinker, and the details behind his benders are heartbreaking.
13. He Would Abandon Her
Henaghan was far from a functioning alcoholic, and would completely up and leave the young mother and son while he went out on the town. As Verdon put it much later, he “would wind up in Kansas City and not remember how he got there”. Sadly, that wasn’t all.
14. She Was A Child Bride
Being just a child herself, Gwen Verdon barely knew what she was doing in the marriage or in motherhood, and had little sense of what was or wasn’t normal. “I thought being married meant doing the laundry,” she later told The New York Times.
Under this illusion, she made a devastating choice.
15. She Gave Up Her Most Prized Possession
Because Verdon now had a young boy to take care of and all the pressures of society weighing down on her, she quite literally binned her dancing shoes in order to better devote herself to being a bride and other.
Unfortunately, Henaghan then began asking for much more than that.
16. She Wrote For Her Husband
If it wasn’t enough that he was consumed by his drinking demons, Henaghan also had Verdon cover for him in one shameful way: Eventually, she began writing his theater critic columns for him. But even teenage girls have breaking points.
17. Her Marriage Fell Apart
Verdon’s forced marriage to Henaghan was never going to end well, and eventually Verdon all but fled out of their house. “I went home to Mama,” she said, “I took my child, my dog and my cats and left”.
They officially divorced in 1947—but more heartbreak was ahead.
18. She Gave Up Her Son
With her marriage ending, Gwen Verdon was at crossroads: Should she head back to stardom, and could she do it while being a mother? That’s when she made a gut-wrenching choice. She put her son Jimmy in her parents’ care, and made a move that would change her life.
19. She Couldn’t Stay Away From Hollywood
Verdon never forgot about her dancing dreams during her marriage, and once she was free of it she dove right back into them, working as an assistant to the choreographer Jack Cole and taking bit parts in movie musicals as a dancer.
But even in these humble times, she had big brushes with stardom.
20. She Taught Hollywood’s Biggest Stars
While working for Cole, Verdon also worked as a dance teacher—and her client list was eye-popping. No less than starlets such as Jane Russell, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, and Marilyn Monroe all learned hypnotic moves from Verdon.
But with some of these stars, Verdon had her work cut out for her.
21. Marilyn Monroe Learned Something From Her
It was Verdon who coached both Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe how to dance for their hit film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but she offered each of them very different advice. She had to get Monroe to tone down the seduction in her movements, while she needed Russell to amp it up.
Still, there was only so long Verdon was going to wait around backstage.
22. She Got A Big Part
The same year she taught Monroe and Russell to dance, Verdon appeared in Cole Porter’s stage musical Can-Can as the second female lead. It was supposed to be a supporting role, but it turned into so much more.
23. She Was A Show Stealer
In the previews for Can-Can, audiences were continually more drawn to Verdon than they were to the show’s actual lead, the mononymous French prima donna Lilo. This was particularly true for Verdon’s version of Eve in the Garden of Eden ballet section.
This did not go over well with Lilo.
24. The Lead Dancer Tried To Destroy Her
When she got wind that people were gravitating toward a different actress, Lilo insisted, prima donna style, that Verdon’s part get cut down to only a measly two dance numbers. But by now, Verdon was no push-over—and she pushed back.
25. She Made Her Own Demands
Instead of caving once more to the demands of others at the risk of her own career, Verdon went prima donna herself, and announced she was going to quit before the show premiered on Broadway. Lucky for her, though, this didn’t happen.
26. Audiences Went Wild For Her
Gwen Verdon stuck with it, and her opening night performance turned into a jaw-dropper. Her Garden of Eden dance stunned the audience that night so much, they began screaming her name and demanding a curtain call. Only, Verdon wasn’t quite ready for her closeup.
27. She Did A Curtain Call Dressed Only In A Towel
Verdon was so startled and unprepared for this adulation, she actually had to rush from her dressing room to take her bows—which she did while dressed only in a towel. The next time she spoke to her producers, though, she was definitely prepared.
28. She Got A Prestigious Award
As a result of her smashing success in Can-Can, Verdon didn’t just garner her first Tony award, she also demanded—and received—a pay raise.
For the second time in her life, Verdon had managed to scrape herself up to stardom, and the lights were about to get very bright indeed.
29. She Was Iconic Early On
The sheer amount of iconic roles Verdon debuted is staggering, and it started with her next show, Damn Yankees. A giant of the Broadway world, Yankees turned into an enormous hit—but Verdon had to work for her lead role as Lola.
30. She Met A Rising Star
Verdon’s choreographer on Yankees was none other than rising star Bob Fosse, who had previously had great success on The Pajama Game. In fact, Fosse may have thought he was a bigger star than Verdon: When his team suggested her for Lola, he refused until he could connect with Verdon in person.
When he did, the trouble started.
31. They Had Intense Chemistry
Everyone on the show could see that Fosse and Verdon shared a special connection, and their dancing together was magnetic—Fosse even plays her mambo partner in the 1958 Yankees film version of “Who’s Got the Pain”.
Only, their chemistry was close to destructive.
32. She Liked A Bad Boy
Bob Fosse was incredibly talented, but he was also incredibly messed up. By the time he met Verdon, he had already burned his way through one divorce thanks to his many affairs, and his second marriage to dancer Joan McCracken was currently failing.
Then again, Verdon was no angel, either.
33. She Was “Difficult”
By this time, Gwen Verdon had something of a reputation for being “difficult,” the supposed death-knell for any actress. But Verdon wore the badge proudly, saying, “I was difficult because I couldn’t stand bad dancing”.
Well, Fosse may have been a bad husband, but he wasn’t a bad dancer. In other words, Verdon was hooked.
34. She Lived In Sin
Not long after Yankees, Fosse and Verdon kept an open secret. They weren’t just collaborating together—on the musicals New Girl in Town and Redhead, both Tony-winning performances for Verdon—they had begun a full-blown affair, and were now living together.
But that didn’t mean they were silent about their alliance.
35. She Leaned Into Her Reputation
Verdon was, rightly, proud of her “difficult” reputation, and she was soon using her heft in Broadway to protect Fosse’s artistic visions. When producers balked at Fosse’s choreography for the scandalous “Red Light Ballet” in New Girl in Town and wanted to cut it, Verdon got revenge.
36. She Boycotted Her Own Show
Pleading a sore throat, Verdon missed out on the preview shows for New Girl in Town, though everyone suspected (rightly) that it was really in protest of the show’s missing number. And because she had a lead role and she was Gwen Verdon, the consequences were stunning.
37. They Scrambled Without Her
According to reports, it took no fewer than four separate understudies to perform Verdon’s heavy lifting in New Girl in Town, and even then it’s doubtful they could do Fosse’s moves as well as Verdon could. Eventually, then, Verdon’s boycott paid off.
38. She Got What She Wanted
By the time New Girl in Town went to Broadway for its Tony-winning run, “Red Light Ballet” was back in rotation, and Verdon was finally satisfied. With her work, at least.
There was, of course, that one little problem—that her boyfriend Fosse was still married to someone else. But this was not a scenario Verdon would tolerate for long.
39. She Made It Official
In 1959, Fosse and his wife Joan McCracken officially divorced, and months later in 1960, Verdon and Fosse wed. The mistress had become the Mrs, and Verdon and Fosse were now an official Broadway power couple. For a brief time, it kept getting better.
40. She Had Another Child
In 1963, Verdon gave birth to her second child (and Fosse’s only), a daughter they named Nicole. Whereas before, childbirth had meant restrictive domesticity, now Verdon was quickly back to work again with Fosse in the acclaimed Sweet Charity.
But in other ways, things weren’t so sweet at all.
41. Her Husband Was A Notorious Cheat
Fosse’s notorious womanizing didn’t stop with his marriage to Verdon. In fact, he was an almost obsessive cheater, with Verdon once saying, “He’d even cheat on his mistress. Part of him felt guilty, another part was ecstatic”. These weren’t his only issues.
42. Her Husband Collapsed On Stage
In the end, philandering was the least of Bob Fosse’s problems. In 1961, shortly after their marriage, he collapsed on stage during a show rehearsal and was diagnosed with epilepsy. But he hadn’t hit bottom—because then there were his inner demons.
43. She Couldn’t Leave Him Alone
As addicted to women as Fosse was, he was also addicted to company, period. He despised being by himself and, as his biographer put it, "nights alone were murder on Fosse”. Yet still, Verdon’s husband spiraled further.
44. She Married Another Addict
Amidst all the womanizing and pathological need for human contact, Fosse was being destroyed from the inside by his biggest demon. During their marriage, Fosse was addicted to prescription pills, and the side effects were ghastly.
45. He Was Caught In A Vicious Cycle
The pills Fosse took often caused insomnia—and this mixed with his inability to be alone became a lethal combination. While up late and without Verdon, Fosse would often find himself calling up his dancers for dates to alleviate his loneliness.
And so the cycle continued, getting ever closer to the breaking point.
46. She Didn’t Take A Part
By 1969, the cracks in the Fosse-Verdon marriage were showing. Although Gwen Verdon had starred in the Broadway stage show of Sweet Charity, directed by her husband, she didn’t reprise her role in the 1969 film version. Instead, something much more upsetting happened.
47. Her Husband Took The Glory
Instead of becoming Charity again for the film—as she had for Yankees—Verdon was replaced by Shirley MacLaine. All this, even though Fosse himself took the helm again as director for the film, in what was his feature debut.
Still, there was further to fall.
48. She Kept Helping Him
At the dawn of the 1970s, Gwen Verdon was still trying to eke out a functioning marriage with Fosse, and joined him in Berlin to help as he directed Cabaret. Fosse would go on to win Best Director for the film—but it also spelled the virtual end of his marriage.
49. She Caught Him Red-Handed
According to one biography of Fosse, their marriage crashed and burned after one mortifying incident. Reportedly while in Berlin on set, Verdon walked in on Fosse with “a couple of German girls” doing more than just line reading.
Verdon’s response, however, was surprising.
50. She Couldn’t Leave Him
Although Verdon functionally separated from Fosse after Cabaret came out, they never officially divorced. More than that, they continued to collaborate together, often with success. But even so, Verdon was heading into the nadir of her career.
51. She Worked Without Him
In the midst of her breakup from Fosse, Verdon took on the starring part in the play Children! Children!, getting away from Fosse for once. It was a sound idea…but it ended in utter disaster on the opening night.
52. She Had A Huge Flop
When the curtains fell after the first night of Children! Children!, critics were appalled. Clive Barnes of the New York Times wrote, “The acting of the entire cast—including, I fear, Miss Verdon—was so indescribably bad that I do not intend to attempt to describe it”.
Thus, Verdon’s solo foray ended after one evening. But her next move became iconic.
53. She Originated An Iconic Role
In 1975, Fosse was directing the Broadway musical Chicago, which much later became a hit film. Although the musical got poor reviews, Verdon’s performance—as the original Roxie Hart—was praised as “delectable”.
But when it came to Fosse and Verdon, there was always drama.
54. Her Husband Had Another Heart Attack
While she was in the middle of making Chicago, Gwen Verdon got the scare of her life. In 1974, just before Chicago debuted, Bob Fosse’s hard-living caught up with him and he suffered a massive heart attack. But this time, he got lucky.
55. They Managed To Save Him
Somehow, Fosse managed to survive the cardiac arrest, though Verdon had to stand by as her estranged husband received open heart surgery. Maybe it should have been a lesson to Fosse. But when he emerged, he only went harder.
56. He Didn’t Know How To Stop
In the wake of the health scare, Fosse decided not to relax, but rather to make a film about his life and near-death experiences—what would become 1979’s fantastical semi-autobiography All That Jazz.
It was a massive undertaking, and Gwen Verdon was in for another wild ride.
57. She Kept Supporting Him
Verdon must have known Fosse was lucky to be alive and should slow down, but she was nonetheless with him all the way as he made All That Jazz, helping with the production and choreography in the dance-heavy film. Yet some of its scenes must have been difficult to watch.
58. They Aired Their Personal Life
Fosse and Verdon didn’t hold back their private life when it came to All That Jazz, and the character of Audrey Paris, ex-wife and muse, was directly inspired by Verdon’s relationship to Fosse, although Paris was played by actress Leland Palmer.
While on set, Verdon witnessed some familiar bad behavior.
59. Everything Was Business To Them
Fosse could never quite exorcise his demons, including his treatment of women. At the time of All That Jazz, Fosse was involved with dancer Ann Reinking. Nonetheless, Fosse made her audition for the role of the girlfriend in the film.
As usual though, Verdon took her own approach to this new relationship.
60. She Was A Friendly Ex
Where Fosse was bombastic, Verdon was even-handed, and she developed a close, competent relationship with Reinking through the years that she and Fosse were together romantically. Verdon even helped teach in some of Reinking’s musical theatre classes.
But while she was friendly with her ex, Verdon didn’t forget about herself.
61. She Dated Actors
Verdon was never one to dwell on the negative, including her breakup. She hit the rebound in a big way. Showing a taste for show biz men, she dated actor Scott Brady as well as actor Jerry Lanning.
Fosse, meanwhile, kept heading toward disaster—and pulled Verdon along with him.
62. She Finally Lost Him
Fosse (and Verdon’s) All That Jazz ends with Fosse’s stand-in being put in a body bag—and this dark vision came true all too soon. On September 23, 1987, a 60-year-old Fosse had one last, fatal heart attack. But that was only half the tragedy.
63. She Was With Him At The End
Gwen Verdon had truly never abandoned Bob Fosse, and she was right there with him even at the end. They were together at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC when Fosse collapsed in Verdon’s arms.
Still, that wasn’t the last thing Verdon did for Fosse.
64. She Threw Him A Massive Party
As part of his last wishes, Bob Fosse wanted everyone to “go out and have dinner on me”. Gwen Verdon fulfilled this in the most glamorous way possible. She hosted a star-studded party in Manhattan’s swanky Tavern on the Green, packing it with Fosse’s friends and admirers.
But in the end, Verdon didn’t let Fosse’s curtains closing stop her own career.
65. She Branched Out
Ever since her run in Chicago, Verdon had spent more time on film than on theatre, and after and around Fosse’s death she played roles in films such as The Cotton Club as well as in television shows such as Magnum, PI. Yet something was still missing.
66. She Went Unrecognized
Although Verdon received less criticism throughout her life than Fosse, this was a double-edged sword. She also often received very little credit for her role in the work they did together, partly because she was more in the background next to her eccentric husband.
But for those who paid attention, Verdon was also quite eccentric herself.
67. She Was A Cat Lady
Verdon was an enormous cat lover—and she put her money where her heart was. During her life, she lived with up to six cats at once. That wasn’t the end of her unusual love for felines, either.
68. She Had A Sense Of Humor
When it came to naming her (many) cats, Verdon showed a fanciful side. She named her pets with monikers like “Tidbits Tumbler Fosse,” and “Feets Fosse,” and called another one “Junie Moon,” after an Otto Preminger film.
69. She Reunited With Her Son
Perhaps one of the hardest things Verdon ever did was to cede her son Jimmy into the care of her parents back when she was leaving her first marriage—but she got a second chance. Over the years, he did get to visit her in New York, and spent time between her apartment, his grandparents’ home, and a boarding school.
Though Verdon felt guilty over what had happened, she tried her best to make sure he had a normal childhood—something he said she succeeded at.
70. A Heart Attack Got Her Too
Verdon’s dance had to come to an end sometime. In October of 2000, at the age of 75, she passed from a heart attack—the same cause of death as her collaborator and ex Bob Fosse—in her daughter Nicole’s home.
And when Broadway mourned her, they did it right.
71. Broadway Broke Without Her
As a nod to Gwen Verdon’s many contributions to the Great White Way, the night that the dancer died all the marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed at the same moment at 8 pm. It was a fitting send off for a woman who gave so much to the stage.