In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Reinking admitted she was wary of the FX series, saying she was concerned it might focus too intently on Fosse’s dark side. “Bob was beloved by people, very intelligent people, for their entire lives, and he had tremendous loyalty from everyone,” she said. “I know he has a reputation for being abusive, but he’s not. That’s the thing that bothers me, is that I fear that they might make him abusive.”
Reinking’s career came full circle in 1996, with the Broadway revival of Chicago, staged nine years after the director and choreographer’s death. The 1975 original had been a well-reviewed but only modestly successful musical, hampered by the fact that it opened during the same season as that critical and commercial juggernaut, A Chorus Line. (Both Verdon and her co-star, Chita Rivera, were nominated for a Tony that year, but lost out to A Chorus Line’s Donna McKechnie.)
Ann Reinking, right, with Bebe Neuwirth in the 1996 revival of Chicago, for which they both won Tony Awards.
WENN Rights Ltd / Alamy Stock PhotoIn addition to returning to the role of Roxie, playing opposite Bebe Neuwirth, Reinking also took over the choreography, bringing her unmatched knowledge of Fosse’s style to the production. The revival started out as a limited-run, bare-bones production at City Center, part of the “Encores” series. But the opening night reviews were ecstatic, the show quickly sold out, and then, a few months later, it transferred to Broadway, where it won six Tony Awards, including one for Reinking’s choreography. That revival continued to run on Broadway until the coronavirus pandemic shut down the Great White Way earlier this year.
Reviewing the Encores production for The New York Times, an initially skeptical Ben Brantley wrote, “How do you do Fosse without Fosse?” Then he explained, “The answer, in two words: Ann Reinking.” Calling the show a “particular personal triumph“ for Reinking, he wrote, “the years have mellowed her Minnie Mouse voice into a sensual smokiness and refined her comic timing. Her deceptively casual dancing both exudes ripe sexuality and winks at it. And her show-stopping performance of ‘Roxie,’ with a cadre of chorus boys, is really a blissed-out, erotic duet between a star and her audience.”
Reinking was also the co-creator, co-director and co-choreographer for Fosse, a 1999 musical that showcased Fosse’s choreography and that won the Tony for best musical that season. The musical was Reinking’s final appearance on Broadway, as she briefly filled in as a replacement ensemble member in 2001.
Reinking is survived by her husband, the sports writer Peter Talbert, her son, Christopher, and six siblings.
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