- Born
- Died
- Birth nameHerbert David Ross
- Nickname
- Herb
- Herbert Ross was born on May 13, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Turning Point (1977), The Goodbye Girl (1977) and The Secret of My Success (1987). He was married to Lee Radziwill and Nora Kaye. He died on October 9, 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.
- SpousesLee Radziwill(September 23, 1988 - August 2001) (divorced)Nora Kaye(August 1959 - February 28, 1987) (her death)
- Frequently casted Leslie Browne
- Dance films
- Directed 12 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Peter O'Toole, George Burns, Walter Matthau, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, Leslie Browne, Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, Maggie Smith and Julia Roberts. Burns, Dreyfuss and Smith won Oscars for their performances in one of Ross' movies. He hit his peak in 1977, directing seven of the twenty nominated performances, including Dreyfuss and three of the five Best Actress nominees.
- Brother-in-law of Jacqueline Kennedy from 1988 until her death in 1994.
- He died of the same ailment that killed his father.
- As of 2011, he is the only director to have directed both the Golden Globe winner for Best Drama and Best Musical/Comedy of the same year (The Turning Point (1977) and The Goodbye Girl (1977); he also won the Golden Globe for Best Director that year for the former.).
- Like many dancers, he dropping out of high school, Ross went from Brooklyn to Miami, Florida to New York City to pursue a career in acting. But then he tried dance and fell in love with it. He danced in the choruses of several shows, but inevitably Ross stumbled into his career as a choreographer after he injured his ankle.
- [explaining why he quit ballet as a professional career] I was too tall and big-boned and never had good feet.
- [on his father's death from heart failure after Ross dropped out of school] The truth will look very ugly in print, but the fact is that I don't feel guilty about what happened. I say this in spite of the fact that certain relatives--fortunately not my sister or my stepmother--accused me of causing my father's death. I would do the same thing again, because there was no other alternative for me. It was almost a primordial urge, like getting back to the sea.
- [on working with Goldie Hawn on Protocol (1984)] Everyone knows that the woman is super-talented. She is also a saint. "Protocol" was a difficult production with lots of locations, a big cast and a tight schedule. Goldie was wonderful throughout.
- [on T.R. Baskin (1971)] I was fooled by the script. I discovered in working on the script that it was like quicksand: the harder we worked, the more we investigated, the more damage we did.
- I spent all those years in ballet, and as Balanchine [ballet dancer George Balanchine] said, ballet is women. I'm used to perceiving women as independent and often more than our equals.
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