Tony-Winning Choreographer Michael Smuin Dies at 68

Michael Smuin, a Tony Award-winning choreographer and dancer whose work spanned the worlds of musical theater and ballet, died on April 23 of an apparent heart attack while teaching a class at his San Francisco-based company, Smuin Ballet. He was 68.

Smuin was born on October 13, 1938, in Missoula, Montana, and studied tap and ballet as a child. He began his professional career at 15 with the San Francisco Ballet and eventually married dancer Paula Tracy, with whom he had a son. The couple joined American Ballet Theater in 1965 and divorced in 2000. After making his Broadway debut as a dancer in the original 1962 production fo Little Me, Smuin began choreographing ballets and returned to San Francisco in 1973, spending 12 years there as co-director of the San Francisco Ballet.

Smuin's Broadway career resumed in 1981, when he received Tony nominations for both his choreography and direction of Sophisticated Ladies, starring Gregory Hines and Judith Jamison. In 1988, he won the Tony for his choreography of Lincoln Center Theater's revival of Anything Goes. He directed and choreographed the big-budget flop Shogun, The Musical in 1990, and the following year, he choreographed a tango for the short-lived revival of Private Lives starring Joan Collins. Smuin also choreographed for film and television and won a 1984 Emmy Award for an episode of Great Performances: Dance in America.

In recent years, Smuin concentrated on his own dance company, which presented works that used elements from pop culture such as break dancing and video, according to The NewYork Times. His "Christmas Ballet," for example, included a shark, tap-dancing Christmas trees and the music of Eartha Kitt.