Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins Hardcover - 2001

From the publisher

For decades, he was one of the most commanding creative forces in America. His work on such shows as West Side Story, On the Town, The King and I, Peter Pan, Call Me Madame, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof, Pajama Game, Gypsy and Jerome Robbins' Broadway earned him five Tony Awards and two Academy Awards. His brilliance with American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet established him as one of America's great ballet masters.

But when Jerome Robbins, nee Rabinowitz, died in 1998 at the age of 79, he was a haunted man. All his life, he had struggled with demons: his bisexuality, his Judaism, his often bitter relationships with his parents, his betrayals of others during the McCarthy hearings, and a perfectionism that bordered on the sadistic (once during rehearsal, he backed up until he toppled over into the open orchestra pit, without one cast member warning him -- said one eyewitness, "Nobody said, 'Watch it!" Nope. Off he went".). He was loved and hated in equal parts, and only now, in Lawrence's biography, based upon two years of research and dozens of interviews with Robbins' family, friends and colleagues, can the full measure of both the artist and the man be taken. Filled with the great and the near-great -- Balanchine, Bernstein, de Mille, Clift, Kazan, Mostel -- it is a fascinating portrait of light and dark.