Leroy Prinz

LeRoy Prinz
LeRoy Prinz and dancers at Paramount
Born	LeRoy Jerome Prinz (1895-07-14)July 14, 1895 St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.
Died	September 15, 1983(1983-09-15) (aged 88) Wadsworth, California, U.S.
Education	Northwestern University
Occupation	Choreographer, director
Years active	1929–1958

LeRoy Jerome Prinz (July 14, 1895 – September 15, 1983) was an American choreographer, director and producer, who was involved in the production of dozens of motion pictures, mainly for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, from 1929 through 1958, and also choreographed Broadway musicals. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction in the 1930s, and won the Golden Globe in 1958.

Among the films whose dances he choreographed were Show Boat (1936), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), and South Pacific (1958).

LeRoy Jerome Prinz was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. His grandfather was a dancing master, and his father taught ballroom dancing etiquette to young men and women at Prinz's Academy in St. Joseph. According to one account, he was sent to reform school after chasing his stepmother with a carving knife.

In newspaper profiles, he claimed that after running away from boarding school at the age of 15, he "hopped a freight" and came to New York City, where, in 1911, he began a song and dance act, "Prinz and Buck," with a young black man he met along the way. Later that year, he told interviewers, he went on a ship to Europe as a cabin boy, jumped ship, and traveled around Europe "introducing the American strut step" in return for meals and lodging. In Marseilles he joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as a bugler in Algiers. He also represented a rubber company in St. Louis and Kansas City.