1. LeRoy Jerome Prinz was an American choreographer, director and producer, who was involved in the production of dozens of motion pictures, mainly for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, from 1929 through 1958, and choreographed Broadway musicals.
LeRoy Prinz was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction in the 1930s, and won the Golden Globe in 1958.
Leroy Jerome Prinz was born July 14,1895, in St Joseph, Missouri to Edward "Egid" Albert and Anna Prinz.
LeRoy Prinz's father owned Prinz's Dancing Academy in St Joseph, Missouri.
LeRoy Prinz's father taught more than three generations how to dance and was teaching until his death at 80 years old.
LeRoy Prinz represented a rubber company in St Louis and Kansas City.
LeRoy Prinz was with the 94th from November 1917 to June 1918, when he switched to the 27th Aero Squadron, where he stayed until November 1918.
LeRoy Prinz subsequently told journalists that he crashed 14 to 18 airplanes, was nicknamed "America's German Ace" as a result, and that he was wounded in the war and carried a silver plate in his head from his last plane crash.
The newspaper gives LeRoy Prinz's rank as captain and states that he was a flight partner of Quentin Roosevelt.
The newspaper wrote that LeRoy Prinz had "fallen 3000 feet" but had recovered.
LeRoy Prinz told interviewers that he worked for gangster Jim Colosimo's restaurant in Chicago, and that he produced stage shows for Al Capone.
LeRoy Prinz claimed in a 1945 New York Times profile that Capone hired him to book entertainment and stage floor shows at 18 Chicago nightclubs.
LeRoy Prinz left Chicago and worked as a dance director in New York, Florida, Mexico and Cuba.
LeRoy Prinz's employers included Earl Carroll, Broadway's Shubert family, Tex Guinan and Philadelphia bootlegger Boo Hoo Hoff.
LeRoy Prinz choreographed Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 and other Broadway shows between 1929 and 1933.
LeRoy Prinz directed dance sequences for dozens of Paramount Pictures movies between 1933 and 1941, when he became dance director of Warner Brothers, where he staged all of Warner's musical sequences for the next 16 years.
LeRoy Prinz worked on over 150 films, mainly as a choreographer, including The Desert Song, Tea for Two, and The Jazz Singer, a remake of the first sound movie.
LeRoy Prinz choreographed a "ballet in jive" sequence in the service musical Hollywood Canteen, featuring Broadway dancer Joan McCracken.
LeRoy Prinz played himself directing the sequence in a brief cameo.
However, he gave her latitude to incorporate ballet in her dance routine, and LeRoy Prinz did not object to her ideas.
LeRoy Prinz ceased working in films after choreographing the Boar's Tooth Ceremonial dance sequence in the film adaptation of South Pacific.
LeRoy Prinz counted among his friends Ronald Reagan, whom he knew from their days working together at Warner Brothers, and he choreographed entertainment at the 1976 Republican National Convention and at several presidential inaugurations.
Reagan called him from the White House when LeRoy Prinz was in the hospital shortly before he died.
LeRoy Prinz was a "notorious self-promoter", and told stories about himself that were sometimes dubious.
LeRoy Prinz was nominated in the long-defunct category of Best Dance Direction during the 1937 Academy Awards for Waikiki Wedding, and was twice nominated in this category for the 1935 films All the King's Horses and The Big Broadcast of 1936.
LeRoy Prinz was awarded the Golden Globe for best film choreography in 1958.
LeRoy Prinz was an "idea man" rather than a choreographer, creating lavish production numbers by using simple steps and dance routines.
Berkeley's numbers "broke the boundaries of the stage," and LeRoy Prinz took a completely opposite approach, reinforcing the perspective of a stage performance that the audience could not forget.
LeRoy Prinz's style is evident in the Little Johnny Jones number in Yankee Doodle Dandy, which featured a stationary camera and included features of the stage, such as the orchestra pit, in the dance number.
LeRoy Prinz eloped to Yuma, Arizona with Bryson on June 21,1936, and remained married to her until his death in 1983 Betty Bryson was the niece by marriage of actor Warner Baxter.
LeRoy Prinz was put under contract to Fox and had a part in her uncle's film, Grand Canary.
LeRoy Prinz had a daughter, Dolores Lee Prinz and had a son, LeRoy Prinz, Jr.