Maurice Hines, an actor, dancer and choreographer who starred together with his brother Gregory Hines in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Membership,” died Friday. He was 80.
Associates together with Debbie Allen and John Manzari reported the information of his demise.
Hines started finding out faucet dancing at 5 years previous, making his Broadway debut in “The Woman in Pink Tights” in 1954. With an act modeled after the Nicholas Brothers, Maurice and his older brother Gregory, who died in 2003, started touring with their dancer father as Hines, Hines & Dad, showing throughout the nation and on a number of TV reveals.
When Maurice Hines determined to go solo, he was solid as Nathan Detroit in a nationwide tour of “Guys and Dolls,” then carried out on Broadway in “Eubie!” On “Uptown…It’s Scorching!” he labored as choreographer and performer, netting a Tony nomination for greatest actor in a musical.
Among the many different reveals he choreographed had been “Harlem Suite,” through which he additionally starred; Louis Armstrong musical “Satchmo” and “Havana Night time in Cuba.”
Although Hines was a mainstay on Broadway and in touring reveals, his solely characteristic movie function got here in Coppola’s 1984 musical as a part of the tap-dancing Williams Brothers group.
He had tv appearances on “Cosby,” “Eubie!” and “Love, Sidney.”
In 2010, Hines starred in “Subtle Girls” in Washington, D.C., which co-starred the teenaged dancing brothers John and Leo Manzari. John Manzari remembered him on Fb, writing “It was a unprecedented privilege to be mentored by this man. Maurice – at almost fifty years my senior, embraced me as a teen with such generosity it boggles the thoughts.”
Among the many different reveals he choreographed and/or carried out in had been “Yo Alice,” a tribute to his brother “Tappin’ Through Life” and “First Girl of Tune,” a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
The biographical documentary “Maurice Hines: Convey Them Again” was launched in 2019.
