Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley , 1895-1975, American film director and choreographer, b. Los Angeles as William Berkeley Enos. He choreographed several Broadway revues before moving (1930) to Hollywood, where he achieved his greatest successes at Warner Bros. (1933-39). Berkeley became famous for staging elaborate dance numbers in which lines of showgirls performed synchronized movements which, photographed from innovative angles, particularly from above, created kaleidoscopic, often surreal patterns of moving figures. The height of his style was reached in the 1930s in such films as 42nd Street (1933), Dames (1934), and a series of Gold Diggers movies, for which he directed either the dance sequences or the entire production. Although his kind of spectacular became passé, he continued to direct other musicals during the 1940s, staged musical numbers for a few films into the 1960s, and returned to Broadway to direct a revival of No, No Nanette (1970).

Berkeley, Busby [né William Berkeley Enos] (1895–1976), director and choreographer. Although best known for the mammoth precision dance routines he created in Warner Brothers films in the 1930s, he was briefly an important figure on Broadway. He came to New York from his native Los Angeles after touring in The Man Who Came Back (1917) and made his New York debut as a replacement for dress designer Madame Lucy in the original Irene (1919). After several years directing stock in New England and Canada, Berkeley returned to Broadway as choreographer for Holka Polka (1925), The Wild Rose (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927), The White Eagle (1927), Present Arms (1928), Earl Carroll Vanities (1928), Rainbow (1928), Pleasure Bound (1929), 9:15 Revue (1930), International Revue (1930), Sweet and Low (1930), and several others. While his Broadway routines featured the popular precision routines of the day, they were marked as well by an imaginative irreverence that sent dancers scampering over furniture and props. In 1970 Berkeley supervised the successful revival of No, No, Nanette.