Busby Berkeley

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Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley photo.jpg
c. 1935
Born Busby Berkeley William Enos
(1895-11-29)November 29, 1895
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died March 14, 1976(1976-03-14) (aged 80)
Palm Desert, California, U.S.
Resting place
Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California
Occupation film director, choreographer
Years active 1901–1971

Busby Berkeley (November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976[1]), born Busby Berkeley William Enos, was a Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.


The "By A Waterfall" production number from Footlight Parade (1933) made use of one of the largest soundstages ever built, constructed especially by Warner Bros. to film Berkeley's creations.
A typical Busby Berkeley geometrical arrangement of dancers, from Dames (1934).

Berkeley was born to stage actress Gertrude Berkeley. Among Gertrude's friends were actress Amy Busby and actor William Gillette, then only four years away from playing Sherlock Holmes. Gertrude apparently named her son after both Busby and Gillette after they agreed to be the boy's godparents. The boy was named Busby Berkeley William Enos.[2]

In addition to her stage work, Gertrude played mother roles in silent films while Berkeley was still a child. Berkeley made his stage debut at five, acting in the company of his performing family. During World War I, Berkeley served as a field artillery lieutenant. Watching soldiers drill may have inspired his later complex choreography. During the 1920s, Berkeley was a dance director for nearly two dozen Broadway musicals, including such hits as A Connecticut Yankee. As a choreographer, Berkeley was less concerned with the terpsichorean skill of his chorus girls as he was with their ability to form themselves into attractive geometric patterns. His musical numbers were among the largest and best-regimented on Broadway.[citation needed]

His earliest movie jobs were on Samuel Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor musicals, where he began developing such techniques as a "parade of faces" (individualizing each chorus girl with a loving close-up), and moving his dancers all over the stage (and often beyond) in as many kaleidoscopic patterns as possible.[citation needed] Berkeley's top shot technique (the kaleidoscope again, this time shot from overhead) appeared seminally in the Cantor films, and also the 1932 Universal drama film Night World (where he choreographed the number "Who's Your Little Who-Zis?"). His numbers were known for starting out in the realm of the stage, but quickly exceeding this space by moving into a time and place that could only be cinematic, only to return to shots of an applauding audience and the fall of a curtain. As choreographer, Berkeley was allowed a certain degree of independence in his direction of musical numbers, and they were often markedly distinct from (and sometimes in contrast to) the narrative sections of the films.[citation needed] The numbers he choreographed were mostly upbeat and focused on decoration as opposed to substance; one exception to this is the number "Remember My Forgotten Man" from Gold Diggers of 1933, which dealt with the treatment of soldiers in a post-World War I Depression.

Berkeley's popularity with an entertainment-hungry Great Depression audience was secured when he choreographed four musicals back-to-back for Warner Bros.: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, the aforementioned Gold Diggers of 1933 and Fashions of 1934, as well as In Caliente and Wonder Bar with Dolores del Río. Berkeley's innovative and often sexually charged dance numbers have been analyzed at length by cinema scholars.[specify] In particular, the numbers have been critiqued for their display (and some say exploitation) of the female form as seen through the "male gaze", and for their depiction of collectivism (as opposed to traditionally American rugged individualism) in the spirit of Roosevelt's New Deal. Berkeley always denied any deep significance to his work, arguing that his main professional goals were to constantly top himself and to never repeat his past accomplishments.



Later career[edit]

In the late 1960s, the camp craze brought the Berkeley musicals back to the forefront. He toured the college and lecture circuit, and even directed a 1930s-style cold medication commercial, complete with a top shot of a dancing clock.[citation needed] In his 75th year, Berkeley returned to Broadway to direct a successful revival of No No Nanette starring his old Warner Brothers colleague and "42nd Street" star Ruby Keeler; both also played cameos in the 1970 film The Phynx the same year.


Personal life[edit]

Berkeley was married six times[4] and was survived by his wife Etta Dunn. He was also involved in an alienation of affections lawsuit in 1938 involving Carole Landis.[5] In September 1935, Berkeley was the driver responsible for an automobile accident in which two people were killed, five seriously injured; Berkeley himself was badly cut and bruised.[6] Berkeley, brought to court on a stretcher,[7] heard testimony that Time magazine said made him wince:[6]


After the first two trials for second degree murder ended with hung juries, he was acquitted in a third trial.

Berkeley died on March 14, 1976 in Palm Springs, California at the age of 80 from natural causes.[8] He is buried in the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.[1][9]

Selected works[edit]

See also[edit]


  2. ^ Spivak, Jeffrey, Buzz, The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley (University Press of Kentucky, 2010), pp. 6-7.
  6. ^ a b c People, Sep. 30, 1935, from Time magazine

External links[edit]