Hinton Battle, Three-Time Tony Award Winner and Original Scarecrow in The Wiz, Dies at 67

Hinton Battle, the three-time Tony Award-winning singer, dancer, choreographer, producer and director, who fortuitously landed the role of the Scarecrow in the original production of The Wiz, died on January 29. No reason was given for the death, which was confirmed by his friend Debbie Allen. He was 67.

The son of a U.S. army officer, Battle was born on November 29, 1956 in a military community in Neubrücke, Hoppstädten-Weiersbach, West Germany, and was raised in Washington, D.C. and New York City. A lover of movie musicals as a child, he received a scholarship to The School of American Ballet, studying under George Balanchine.

Battle was just 15 when he made his Broadway debut in The Wiz, having landed the role of the Scarecrow quite unexpectedly. “While the show was on a promotional tour—before it actually hit Broadway—one of the leads left abruptly during intermission and I was called out of the chorus and cast as the Scarecrow for the second act,” he told The Hype Magazine in 2014. “I had no idea what to do, but I knew I could dance. So Stephanie Mills, who was playing Dorothy, said to me, ‘When I pull your straw, that’s when you have a line.’ So every time Stephanie would pull my straw, I would jump in the air, do a split and a pirouette turn, and say whatever came out of my mouth! Being that I was the Scarecrow who had no brain, it worked and the crowd loved it.” The next day, Battle was offered the role full-time.

Battle went on to Tony Award-winning roles in Sophisticated Ladies, The Tap Dance Kid and Miss Saigon, as well as roles in Fosse’s Dancin’, Dreamgirls (which led to a cameo in the movie), Chicago (as Billy Flynn) and Ragtime.

As a choreographer, Battle’s credits include ballets for Baltimore School of the Arts, Washington Reflections Dance Company, Jones Haywood School of Dance and Philadanco. He also choreographed Idlewild (2006), a musical starring André 3000 and Big Boi of the hip hop duo Outkast, and Evil Dead the Musical off-Broadway.

In 2001, Battle starred in the “Once More With Feeling” musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Sweet the jazz demon. He co-founded the Hinton Battle Dance Academy (HBDA) with Yoshimoto Kogyo in 2017.

“Today I honor Hinton Battle, my dear friend who left us to dance and sing in God’s Ensemble last night,” Allen wrote on X. “He fought this battle to live and be creative impacting audiences and young people across the globe. Let us forever speak his name.”