From Publishers Weekly
Jerome Robbins's story is as distinctively American as his choreography. Born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Robbins (1918–1998) became a Broadway chorus boy in 1938 before joining Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, ultimately dancing lead roles. Robbins also became one of the 20th century's most highly regarded choreographers, including for the 1957 Broadway hit West Side Story. Other Broadway successes include On the Town, The King and I and Peter Pan, and significant ballets such as Fancy Free, The Cage and Dances at a Gathering. With precision, lucidity and insight, Village Voice dance critic Jowitt (Time and the Dancing Image) chronicles Robbins's extensive career, as well as his struggles with bisexuality, ambivalence about his Jewish heritage, and his decision to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950s. Given unrestricted access to Robbins's personal and professional papers, Jowitt adds a new vulnerability and humanity to the legend: Robbins was infamous for his perfectionism, insecurity and temper. "I... still have terrible pangs of terror when I feel my career, work, veneer of accomplishments would be taken away," wrote the man who worked alongside Bernstein and Balanchine, "that I panicked & crumbled & returned to that primitive state of terror—the facade of Jerry Robbins would be cracked open, and everyone would finally see Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz." Both critically sophisticated and compulsively readable, this is a must for theater and dance devotees. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
While Jerome Robbins, who is best known for his conception, direction and choreography of "West Side Story," was widely and bitterly disliked, Deborah Jowitt gives only the slightest indication in this new full-length biography that he was not universally loved. There is nothing in this book that could possibly be said to do any fresh damage to Robbins's reputation or to the memory of his artistic achievements. He was undoubtedly one of the great American choreographers, even on the basis of his ballets alone ("Fancy Free," "The Cage," "The Concert," "Moves," "Dances at a Gathering," "The Goldberg Variations," "Two & Three Part Inventions" and many more). He was also a deeply conflicted, self-doubting Jewish homosexual known for his inventive use of profanity during rehearsals and his often inconsiderate, rude behavior. Jowitt was sought out by the executors of the Robbins estate and given access to the Jerome Robbins Papers, which were bequeathed to the New York Public Library but require the estate's permission for perusal. Certainly an uncensored publication of Robbins's journals and notebooks would be of great interest to dance and theater enthusiasts and scholars. This no-nonsense biography, which includes many snippets from Robbins's unpublished writings, seems not meant for a general reader so much as for scholars and academics seeking factual information about Robbins the artist. Most people look to a biography to give a full picture of the person; this book gives a flattering, too-simple picture of a complex man. Robbins was in psychoanalysis more than once, but he is not psychoanalyzed here at all, nor is there anything of substance about his experience on the couch. Crammed with rather mundane descriptions of Robbins's often superb choreography and the justly esteemed Broadway shows he was involved in creating (including "Peter Pan," "Gypsy," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The King and I"), the book offers only a minimal suggestion of how his work and his life might be related. It is essentially a report on what Robbins did in his professional life to earn his place in the dance hall of fame, with brief forays into the most glaring and well-known mistakes he made along the way, such as his naming of Lettie Stever, Lloyd Gough, Madeleine Lee, Elliot Sullivan, Jerome and Edward Chodorov, Edna Ocko and Lionel Berman as people associated with communism to the House Un-American Activities Committee on May 5, 1953. Jerome Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in 1918 in New York City. His father started out poor, became the owner of a delicatessen and then owned the Comfort Corset Company in New Jersey. Before the Depression, the Rabinowitzes lived well; after the Crash, they lived on less, but they always managed to give their two children good educations and access to cultural and artistic events, lessons, recordings and the freedom to pursue their interests. Robbins's father did not much like that his only son was a gay choreographer, but he got used to it eventually, especially when the choreographer became rich and successful. Shortly after Robbins directed and choreographed "Fiddler on the Roof," which was a huge hit on Broadway in 1964, Mr. Rabinowitz proudly introduced his famous son to a roomful of retired card players in Florida, who greeted him as "Mr. Fiddler."Robbins's success came quickly. "Fancy Free," one of his most popular works, had its premiere in 1944 when he was just 25 years old. "On the Town," for which he supplied the choreography, opened on Broadway the same year. "West Side Story" opened in 1957, and Robbins continued to work as a well-paid and lauded choreographer and director of musicals and ballet until very close to the time of his death in 1998. All of this, and much more, is recounted here in great detail, in chronological order. But there are numerous gaps and omissions. On page 435, we're told (in parentheses) that Robbins and his sister "finally made peace with each other after a long period of animosity." But all we had heard of this animosity was that she and her husband were "outraged and appalled" at his naming of names to HUAC more than 20 years earlier. In describing Robbins's life as a teenager, Jowitt tells us that he "earned money delivering eggs, selling magazines, painting screens for a New York photographer, selling tax bills (whatever this meant, it garnered a high school senior 75¢)." Anyone interested enough in Robbins to buy and read his biography would probably like to know a bit more about the screens he painted for a photographer, if not those mysterious tax bills.Regarding Robbins's approach to performing the role of Petrouchka (his "obsession") with Ballet Theatre in 1942, Jowitt mentions a dream he'd had in high school "that he equated with the sad but dauntless puppet -- something about being trapped in a rubbish-strewn lot behind a tall schoolyard fence." Is that the best she can do? Is there no document or surviving confidant to tell us more about this dream? It seems important, a dream that a major 20th-century choreographer "equated" with Petrouchka, one of the best-known male dance roles, one the young Robbins performed many times. But this biography tells us nothing more about it.When Jowitt describes Robbins's first homoerotic experience with an older fellow dancer, she omits his name. Does she not know who it was, or has she just chosen not to tell us? In fact, many (but not all) of the names of Robbins's paramours and boyfriends are omitted. Why?Critics faulted a previous biography of Robbins, Greg Lawrence's 2001 Dance With Demons, for containing too much gossip. Jowitt's book contains too little. There is a point -- and not just a trivial or prurient one -- to knowing what people have to say about an important artist they once knew. The aim is to illuminate the personality in order to better understand the work. There's no virtue in a biographer shielding her subject from criticism or scandal, just as there's no shame in being imperfect.Reviewed by Rick WhitakerCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Director and choreographer Robbins was a complicated man--social and solitary, inspired and neurotic, brilliant and cruel. A giant in the worlds of theater and dance, he worked on many of the most successful Broadway shows of the 1950s and '60s, including The Pajama Game, The King and I, gypsy, and West Side Story, the last of which he conceived, nurtured, directed, and choreographed. While he won himself a place at the top of the American theater, he regularly created dances for American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet. The emotional cost to him was enormous. Stories abound of his terrifying tantrums and monstrous tongue-lashings. In recounting his life and work, longtime Village Voice dance critic Jowitt neither praises Robbins nor buries him. Instead, in a well-researched, well-written biography, she spreads Robbins' life before us: his relatively late start as a dancer, his rapid rise, his follies and foibles and moments of triumph. She doesn't sugarcoat her subject. Robbins named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, after all, thereby helping to destroy the careers of people who had helped him earlier. Yet she doesn't demonize him. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
David Denby Opportunist and genius, tyrant and self-doubter, lover and enemy, Jerome Robbins may be one of the most complex and protean characters ever to dominate our theatrical and dance life. Deborah Jowitt's biography is an amazing feat of research and writing that keeps a steady focus on the staggering amount of high-quality work produced by this tormented whirlwind. I read it in a state of sweet appreciation of the past and chagrin over the present.

Twyla Tharp Ms. Jowitt's book has the authenticity that comes only from being there.

Mikhail Baryshnikov Deborah Jowitt's book on Jerome Robbins is a dignified and thoroughly objective study of an extraordinary man who changed the direction of twentieth-century musical theater. It captures the essence of this haunted perfectionist whose choices in life were as fraught with self-doubt as those made in the rehearsal room. Paralleling the fruits of his creative brilliance with the fallout of personal decisions, Jowitt gives us a three-dimensional look at a charismatic and complex character. I thought I knew Jerome Robbins well -- I was wrong.


Review
John Guare Deborah Jowitt's biography of the 'many selves' of Jerome Robbins is essential reading for anyone interested in American musical theater and ballet. As someone lucky enough to have worked with this genius, I can only say that Jowitt's re-creation of him while creating is so vivid that it gave me an ocular migraine.


Book Description
In this authoritative biography, Deborah Jowitt explores the life, works, and creative processes of the complex genius Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), who redefined the role of dance in musical theater and is also considered America's greatest native-born ballet choreographer. Granted unrestricted access to an enormous archive of personal and professional papers that included journals, correspondence, sketches, photographs, production notes, contracts, and more, Jowitt also interviewed more than one hundred performers and others who had collaborated with Robbins. Her book gives insights into his lively curiosity, his volatile temperament, and his constant striving for perfection, revealing not just how others saw him, but -- through the thoughts, feelings, and passionate outbursts he put down on paper over the course of almost eight decades -- how he saw himself. His career was closely tied to the development of both ballet and musical comedy in America. The only son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he began as a modern dancer and Broadway chorus boy. He joined Ballet Theatre shortly after its founding in 1940 and the New York City Ballet when it first became known by that name in 1948; his choreography, beginning with the smash hit Fancy Free in 1944, contributed to the emerging profile of both companies. He created ingenious numbers for lighthearted musicals like On the Town and High Button Shoes, but his imprint on West Side Story and later on Fiddler on the Roof helped lift the Broadway musical to a level in which dancing illuminated character and plot. Jowitt recounts how this richly creative life in the theater and out of it was shaped by Robbins's affairs with both men and women, his close friendships with other major artists ranging from Robert Graves to Robert Wilson, and the political and artistic climate of the times he lived in. Her investigation of his career includes the brief existence (1958-1961) of his own immensely successful company, Ballets: U.S.A.; his travails "doctoring" such musicals as Funny Girl and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; his more experimental work directing plays during the 1960s; his attempt in the aborted Poppa Piece to come to terms with his Jewish heritage and his appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; and the final glorious period beginning in 1969, when he returned to the New York City Ballet to work again beside the man he considered a mentor, George Balanchine. This meticulously researched and elegantly written story of a life's work is illuminated by photographs, enlivened by anecdotes, and grounded in insights into ballets and musical comedies that have been seen and loved all over the world.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In this authoritative biography, Deborah Jowitt explores the life, works, and creative processes of the complex genius Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), who redefined the role of dance in musical theater and is also considered America's greatest native-born ballet choreographer." "Granted unrestricted access to an archive of personal and professional papers that included journals, correspondence, sketches, photographs, production notes, contracts, and more, Jowitt also interviewed more than one hundred performers and others who had collaborated with Robbins. Her book gives insights into his lively curiosity, his volatile temperament, and his constant striving for perfection, revealing not just how others saw him, but - through the thoughts, feelings, and passionate outbursts he put down on paper over the course of almost eight decades - how he saw himself." This story of a life's work is illuminated by photographs, enlivened by anecdotes, and grounded in insights into ballets and musical comedies that have been seen and loved all over the world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Jerome Robbins's story is as distinctively American as his choreography. Born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Robbins (1918-1998) became a Broadway chorus boy in 1938 before joining Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, ultimately dancing lead roles. Robbins also became one of the 20th century's most highly regarded choreographers, including for the 1957 Broadway hit West Side Story. Other Broadway successes include On the Town, The King and I and Peter Pan, and significant ballets such as Fancy Free, The Cage and Dances at a Gathering. With precision, lucidity and insight, Village Voice dance critic Jowitt (Time and the Dancing Image) chronicles Robbins's extensive career, as well as his struggles with bisexuality, ambivalence about his Jewish heritage, and his decision to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950s. Given unrestricted access to Robbins's personal and professional papers, Jowitt adds a new vulnerability and humanity to the legend: Robbins was infamous for his perfectionism, insecurity and temper. "I... still have terrible pangs of terror when I feel my career, work, veneer of accomplishments would be taken away," wrote the man who worked alongside Bernstein and Balanchine, "that I panicked & crumbled & returned to that primitive state of terror-the facade of Jerry Robbins would be cracked open, and everyone would finally see Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz." Both critically sophisticated and compulsively readable, this is a must for theater and dance devotees. Agent, Robert Cornfield. (Aug.) Forecast: S&S has high hopes for this volume-and they won't be disappointed, for this bio of an American icon will draw attention from both the dance and musical theater worlds, and an NPR-driven campaign will help get the word out. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Jerome Robbins (1918-98) choreographed many classic Broadway musicals (e.g., West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof) and created enduring ballets like Fancy Free and Afternoon of a Faun. To write this authorized biography, Jowitt, the principal dance critic of the Village Voice, enjoyed unrestricted access to Robbins's literary estate. Drawing on a wealth of sketches, correspondence, journals, photographs, and production notes, she fashions an evenhanded and thoughtful account of the life and work of an extraordinary artist. As she tells it, Robbins was often insecure, always a perfectionist, and possessed of a temper that he didn't hesitate to turn on those he felt had turned on him. But this is neither gossipy tell-all nor gushing tribute; Jowitt takes the full measure of the man and his art in a gracefully written work of careful scholarship and genuine appreciation. Greg Lawrence's Dance with Demons (o.p.), the first full-length biography of Robbins, relies on quotes from those who knew him, and in doing so, better illuminates the times than Robbins and his art. Jowitt's book is recommended for all dance and performing arts collections. Carolyn M. Mulac, Chicago P.L. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Like God and Jerome Robbins, Village Voice dance critic Jowitt dwells in details, coming up with an impressive record of her subject's work. Culling his journals, correspondence, and notes for a never completed autobiography, Jowitt presents an exhaustive account of Robbins at work as he created choreography and direction that set the standard during the last half of the 20th century. The author moves briskly through tales of Robbins's turbulent family life, speedily following him to Tamiment, the Pocono camp where in the late 1930s he and others (Danny Kaye, Imogene Coca, Herbert Ross) honed the talents they later offered to a world audience. The narrative then pursues Robbins's two career paths, one down Broadway as director and choreographer of such major works as West Side Story, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof; the other as the creator of dances for, chiefly, the New York City Ballet. Herself a dancer and choreographer, Jowitt puts the reader fifth-row center to see how Robbins's work evolved and then sailed across the stage. While not stinting on aspects of his personal life, she pays less attention to it than did Greg Lawrence in Dance with Demons (2001), which portrayed Robbins as an often tortured, explosive man. Acknowledging that her subject "had a temper that could take the shine off a dancer's soul," Jowitt also finds in her extensive research tales of a generous, sensitive person. She comes up somewhat short in assessing Robbins's legacy, though in a too-brief afterword, she does conclude that Robbins created "art that made an enormous contribution to theater and dance almost worldwide." Her case then rests: it's all in the details. For buffs, scholars, actors, dancers,choreographers, and directors: a vital picture of ballet and Broadway in a golden age. (Photos, not seen)Agent: Robert Cornfeld

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Deborah Jowitt's biography of the 'many selves' of Jerome Robbins is essential reading for anyone interested in American musical theater and ballet. As someone lucky enough to have worked with this genius, I can only say that Jowitt's re-creation of him while creating is so vivid that it gave me an ocular migraine.  — John Guare

Deborah Jowitt's book on Jerome Robbins is a dignified and thoroughly objective study of an extraordinary man who changed the direction of twentieth-century musical theater. It captures the essence of this haunted perfectionist whose choices in life were as fraught with self-doubt as those made in the rehearsal room. Paralleling the fruits of his creative brilliance with the fallout of personal decisions, Jowitt gives us a three-dimensional look at a charismatic and complex character. I thought I knew Jerome Robbins well — I was wrong.  — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Ms. Jowitt's book has the authenticity that comes only from being there.  — Twyla Tharp

Distinguished in her field, compassionate and generous, Deborah Jowitt reveals just about everything Jerome Robbins would have wanted known about his work, particularly in ballet. In less detail, she also reveals more than he probably would have wanted known about his conflicted life and his shifting demons.  — Arthur Laurents