1934—1988
Howard Jeffrey was born in Philadelphia, his family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven years old. His mother Thelma was very encouraging of young Jeffrey to get involved in the entertainment industry. Jeffrey’s first childhood jobs were acting on radio and stage plays. At the age of thirteen he auditioned at a dance competition and won a scholarship to Eugene Loring’s American Academy of Dance.
His professional debut was dancing with Alicia Alonzo and Ballet Theater touring around Europe and South America starting at the age of 18. In the mid 1950’s he moved to New York and danced on and off Broadway. He started working with Jerome Robbins while in New York and assisted with much of the choreography and staging of West Side Story, both the musical and film. He became a popular dance coach (assisting actors in learning dance moves) for many leading ladies in film including Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961), Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (1968) and Funny Lady (1975). As a young man Jeffrey was close friends with fellow dancer Nora Kaye and eventually Kaye’s husband Herbert Ross. Jeffrey went on to assist Ross in several of his films. Jeffrey continued dance coaching actors for film and Television and also produced several films in the 1980’s.