Gwen Verdon & Bob Fosse
During a few routines in a rehearsal studio at 64 Street and Broadway in 1954, to see if they mixed well for a proposed project called Damn Yankees.
After a long preview period, Verdon and Fosse made it legal on April 3, 1960. Though rocky, the couple remained officially married through to Fosse's death on September 23, 1987.
"Sex in a dance is in the eyes of the beholder," Verdon once quipped. "I never thought my dances sexy. I suppose that's because I see myself with my face washed, and to me I look like a rabbit." Fosse went hop-hop! As he later recalled, "She was hot when I met her—in the leotard, I will never forget that. That alabaster skin, the bantam rooster walk." The way in which Fosse shaped his moves in and around Verdon's body—especially in Sweet Charity and Chicago—goes beyond legendary, and into iconography. Forever entwined creatively, they were also forever embroiled in marital difficulty. Compulsive by nature, Fosse himself exposes his penchant for infidelities in the autobiographically-driven movie, All That Jazz, while daring to make sense of his split-hearted romantic allegiances read: Ann Reinking dancing with the stand-in for Verdon and Fosse's daughter, Nicole. Still, complications and razzle-dazzle all made Bob and Gwen one hell of a hot combo. And on Broadway, one that we may never see come this way again.
