Gwen Verdon is “widely regarded as the best dancer ever to brighten the Broadway stage” (The New York Times). Her early career was marked by her close working relationship with Jack Cole, for whom she worked as both a performer and assistant choreographer. Her most enduring professional partnership, however, was with the man she would marry, Bob Fosse. Together, Verdon and Fosse ran up a string of iconic theatrical successes not rivaled by a director/choreographer and star before or since. After Verdon earned her first of four Tony Awards in her breakout role as Claudine in Can-Can, her collaboration with Fosse began. She starred in Damn Yankees (Tony Award), New Girl in Town (Tony Award), Redhead (Tony Award), Sweet Charity (Tony nomination), and Chicago (Tony nomination). Her work in feature films includes roles in On the Riviera, David and Bathsheba, The Mississippi Gambler, Damn Yankees, Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return, The Cotton Club, Nadine, Marvin’s Room, Alice, Bruno, and Walking Across Egypt. Early in her career, she helped stage Marilyn Monroe’s performance of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She served as Artistic Advisor for Steam Heat, the Emmy Award–winning documentary about Fosse. She also appeared on the television programs M*A*S*H; Fame; Trapper John, M.D.; Webster; Magnum, P.I.; The Equalizer; Dream On; Dear John; Homicide: Life on the Street; and Legs. Her work in the concert dance world spanned decades and continents, including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Beijing Ballet School in China, the Houston Ballet, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Counted among the hundreds of partners with whom she danced throughout the course of her career were Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev. Among her many accolades, Verdon won a Grammy Award for Redhead and received a National Endowment for the Arts & Humanities Award.