Bob Fosse Uncut in My Sister Eileen

SteynonLine ^ | February 7, 2026 | Rick McGinnis

[Twotone]

Bob Fosse was up to his usual tricks when he was asked to do some extra work with Janet Leigh during pre-production on My Sister Eileen, his fourth Hollywood movie role and his first as a choreographer. Leigh was nervous and asked Columbia, her studio, if she could rehearse with him "to get sort of seasoned" and started three weeks of what amounted to a private tutorial with the man who would become the most famous choreographer in American musicals.

(Leigh has said she had never made a musical before but that wasn't true: in 1951 she had starred in Two Tickets to Broadway alongside Tony Martin and Ann Miller, an RKO film produced by Howard Hughes and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Two years later she was in Walking My Baby Back Home with Donald O'Connor. The pictures weren't exactly memorable, but why she forgot them is a mystery.)

Remembering the experience in Martin Gottfried's biography All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse, Leigh recalls Fosse as "almost angelic, sensitive, so gentle and patient." But although he was married to his second wife, Joan McCracken, and Leigh was married to Tony Curtis, Fosse was notably affectionate with Leigh whenever they worked alone.

"Both Bobby and I knew," Leigh said, "even without talking about it, that an affair would have happened if we let it. There was that much electricity between us." It would be decades before Fosse's infidelity was so infamous that it was crucial to his working method, as he would immortalize it later in his excruciatingly autobiographical All That Jazz (1979). But at the time it was hardly even notable: just another dancer from out east seeing what he could get away with in Hollywood.

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TOPICS: History; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: bobfosse; dance; movies; musicals

[kvanbrunt2]

“It’s showtime.” “All that jazz” was a great movie.

[Thank You Rush]

I was trying to remember who Bob Fosse was - glad I read the article. I don’t remember seeing Janet Leigh in anything except “Psycho” and I’ve never taken a shower at night since then - 1960 something!!!!

[wardaddy]

Very non gay dance director
My man

[bankwalker]

Fosse probably got laid more than Wilt Chamberlain ...

[jocon307]

Thanks for always posting these!

[telescope115]

It’s showtime.” “All that jazz” was a great movie

Yes it was. Great music and dancing. Roy Scheider, and towards the end, Ben Vereen, were great.

One of these days, you’re gonna miss me daddy….Bye bye love, bye bye happiness, hello loneliness, I think I’m gonna die…

[Dr. Franklin]

“It’s showtime.” “All that jazz” was a great movie.

Fosse was a narcissist.

[freepertoo]

I admire dancers and I can appreciate Fosse for his skill, but I have never liked his style of choreography.

[montag813]

“It’s showtime.” “All that jazz” was a great movie.

I still can't believe it lost Best Picture to the depressing, utterly forgettable 'Kramer vs. Kramer.'

[AppyPappy]

Catcher for the Indians and the A’s