{{short description|American actress}}
{{Infobox person |name = Lee Theodore |image = |caption = |birth_name = Lee Becker |birth_date = August 13, 1933 |birth_place = Newark, New Jersey |death_date = September 3, 1987 |death_place = | spouse = {{marriage|Paris Theodore|1962}} |children = 3, including Ali Dee Theodore }}
'''Lee Theodore''' was an American Broadway theater director, choreographer, performer and dance archivist.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}
== Early life == Born in 1933 as Lee Becker to Russian Jewish immigrants Zena and Gayna (née Klasner) Becker, Lee was raised in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} She began dance lessons at the age of 4. As a child, she often performed at her parents' "Veyetcherinkas": Russian cultural arts nights in their home, with her brother Eugene (who later became a New York Philharmonic violist) and her sister Rita (later Zweig).{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} Lee graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts in 1949.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}
== Work as a dancer and choreographer == As a young dancer, Lee (then still Becker) appeared as the character Anybodys in the original 1957<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.aellea.com/script/westside.txt |title=Archived copy |access-date=August 23, 2023 |archive-date=June 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617050623/http://www.aellea.com/script/westside.txt |url-status=bot: unknown }}, Aellea Classic Movie Scripts (1957), accessed August 23, 2023</ref> production of ''West Side Story'';<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |title=Archived copy |access-date=August 23, 2023 |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401223906/https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |url-status=bot: unknown }}, ''Playbill'' (vault), accessed August 23, 2023</ref> indeed, the role was created for her by Jerome Robbins. She can therefore be heard on that production's 1957 soundtrack LP, released by Columbia Records. She also performed in ''Tenderloin'' and ''The King And I''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |title=Archived copy |access-date=August 23, 2023 |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401223906/https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |url-status=bot: unknown }}, ''Playbill'' (vault), accessed August 23, 2023</ref>
As a choreographer, Theodore created dances for ''Baker Street'', ''Darling Of The Day'', and ''Flora the Red Menace''. In 1967, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Choreography for ''The Apple Tree''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |title=Archived copy |access-date=August 23, 2023 |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401223906/https://www.playbill.com/person/lee-theodore-vault-0000000393 |url-status=bot: unknown }}, ''Playbill'' (vault), accessed August 23, 2023</ref> This was a time period of rich cross-pollination of various styles of dance, and Theodore's work seamlessly and fluidly melded many influences. She also choreographed the 1970 feature film, ''Song Of Norway'',<ref>https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857483/</ref> an adaptation of the 1944 operetta of the same name.
== Work in choreography preservation == In 1976, Theodore founded and created The American Dance Machine, which was a living archive of Broadway theater dance, with seasons on Broadway and international tours. Originally, American Dance Machine was created to rescue great Broadway choreography which, at the time, often was neither filmed nor notated. While the great shows had musical scores and Books to preserve dialogue, the great dances were doomed to be lost. Theodore's "rescue sessions" brought the original dancers from Broadway shows into the studio. Often, they had not performed these dances for many years. But with the understanding that memory resides in a dancer's body, the collaborators played music from the shows and the dancers gradually recreated the choreography—often starting with the memory of just a single step. Once recreated, the dances were filmed and notated.<ref>https://www.adm21.org/history</ref><ref>https://www.bruxellons.be/WWMusicalsBioArtiste.php?artiste=Lee%20Becker%20Theodore</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Burke |first=Siobhan |date=2015-12-16 |title=American Dance Machine for the 21st Century Keeps Classic Moves Alive |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/arts/dance/american-dance-machine-for-the-21st-century-keeps-classic-moves-alive.html |access-date=2023-09-14 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Furthermore, believing that dances must be performed to be truly alive and accessible, Theodore trained a group of talented performers to bring these dances live to audiences. Through this process, American Dance Machine saved the choreography of Agnes De Mille, Jack Cole, Joe Layton, Michael Kidd, Ron Field, Bob Fosse, Onna White and Peter Gennaro. Featured dancers and guest artists included Janet Eilber, Carol Estey, Harold Cromer, Liza Gennaro, Patti Mariano, Nancy Chismar, Randy Skinner and Donald Young.
For many years, Theodore taught a daily Broadway Dance class perhaps the first such class ever at [https://www.92ny.org/dance Harkness Dance Center] on the Upper East Side. Her class, which assumed dancers possessed substantial prior ballet training, was structured by decade on different days: Mondays focused on the 1950s (evoking the era of West Side Story), Tuesdays on the 1960s, and so on through the decades.
Observing her demonstrate technique with apparent ease provided lessons in both technical precision and artistry. This was particularly notable for her extraordinary determination, which remained evident even as her health declined.
==Personal life and death== She was married to the Israeli artist and writer Yoram Kaniuk in the 1950s.<ref>life on sandpaper by yoram kaniuk grove press</ref>
Theodore married American inventor and gunsmith Paris Theodore in 1962.<ref>Marketwire (20 November 2006), obituary</ref> Together they had three sons, Ali and Said Theodore, and filmmaker<ref>Miller, Stephen (2006), obituary: ''[https://www.nysun.com/article/obituaries-paris-theodore-63-inventor-of-spy-weaponry Paris Theodore, 63, Inventor of Spy Weaponry]'', ''The New York Sun'' (Accessed 23 August 2023.)</ref><ref>Miller, Stephen (02 December 2006), obituary: “[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116502203184238739 Weapons Maker Concocted 007 Touches at Secret Lab],” ''The Wall Street Journal'' (Accessed 23 August 2023.)</ref> Paris Kain.<ref>{{cite web |title=Paris Kain Visual Artist |url=https://www.pariskain.com/ |website=www.pariskain.com}}</ref><ref>Miller, Stephen (27 November 2006), obituary: “[https://www.nysun.com/article/obituaries-paris-theodore-63-inventor-of-spy-weaponry Paris Theodore, 63, Inventor of Spy Weaponry],” ''The New York Sun'' (Accessed 23 August 2023.)</ref>
Theodore died on September 3, 1987.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}
==References== <!--- See Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to create references using <ref></ref> tags which will then appear here automatically --> {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|0857483}} *{{IBDB name|1486}} *[http://www.theatredance.com/dancemachine.html Profile on a website documenting the history of American Dance Machine] *[https://www.adm21.org/history Profile on the official website of ADM21, a successor to American Dance Machine] *[https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/3dbcc2d0-7dc8-0134-dc0a-00505686a51c A New York Public Library (NYPL) photograph of then-Lee Becker during rehearsals for ''West Side Story'', 1957] *[https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/3d6562a0-b400-0130-6911-58d385a7b928 An NYPL photograph of Lee Becker Theodore assisting dancers in rehearsal for ''Baker Street'', 1965]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Theodore, Lee}} Category:1933 births Category:1987 deaths Category:20th-century American actresses Category:American choreographers Category:American musical theatre actresses Category:Musical theatre choreographers