Gillian Lynne, choreographer of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Cats’ dies at age 92
Gillian Lynne, a mainstay of the British stage who partnered with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to choreograph a chowder of tail- shaking felines and a cape- twirling “phantom” in two of the most popular shows in musical theater history — “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” — died July 1 at a hospital in London. She was 92.
The cause was pneumonia, said her husband, actor Peter Land.
Lynne was among the finest choreographers in Britain, where she was a teenage soloist with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet company (now the Royal Ballet), danced the cancan at the London Coliseum, staged productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Opera, and helped popularize a modern, jazz-based dance style in the theaters of London’s West End.
Yet she was best known for her two blockbusters with Lloyd Webber, productions that have collectively grossed several billion dollars worldwide and succeeded each other as the longest-running shows on Broadway.
“Quite simply, Gillian Lynne was a seminal figure in choreography for three generations, possibly four as her groundbreaking work in ‘Cats’ is still being seen around the world,” Lloyd Webber said in a statement.
Before “Cats” premiered at the New London Theatre in 1981, he continued, “The idea of a British musical with dance at its heart was unthinkable. It is no exaggeration that ‘ Cats’ opened with the only cast available who could have played their roles. It was Gillie’s depth of contacts from her ballet roots to her work in contemporary dance that made it possible to open ‘Cats’ in Britain and prove the naysayers wrong.”
Their partnership was initiated by producer Cameron Mackintosh, who gave Lynne a copy of “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” — the collection of whimsical T.S. Eliot poems that inspired “Cats” — and told her to catch a train to meet Lloyd Webber.
“They got around a piano and didn’t stop talking or playing for two hours,” Land said in a phone interview.
The result was a sungthrough musical told largely through the choreography of Lynne, who aimed to endow the show’s feline characters with personalized paw movements, leaps and hip thrusts. She was inspired in part by her own cat, Scarlett.
Reviewing the show’s 1982 Broadway opening for the New York Times, theater critic Frank Rich offered qualified praise for director Trevor Nunn and Lynne, who also served as associate director. “It’s the highest achievement . . . that they use movement to give each cat its own personality even as they knit the entire company into a cohesive animal kingdom.”
Amid occasional groans from critics, “Cats” ran for 7,485 performances before closing in 2000 and ceding its longevity record to “Phantom.” (A revival was mounted on Broadway in 2016, with “Hamilton” choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler replacing Lynne. “It makes me feel like I’d like to murder,” she said of the choreography changes.)
Ms. Lynne reportedly turned down an offer to choreograph Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods” to work on “Phantom,” a gothic romance based on a novel by Gaston Leroux. The musical opened in London in 1986 and on Broadway two years later, and has continued to run ever since, with Lynne periodically checking in with the cast to assess their performance.
Even in her 70s and beyond, she was known to walk onstage and demonstrate dance steps. “You may be a tiny bit out of line in a chorus,” one actor told the Independent in 1999, amid rehearsals for a Lynne-directed pantomime in London, “and you think you’ve got away with it, but, oh no, Gillian will take you to one side afterward and say, ‘Darling, you need me to sort you out, don’t you?’”
Gillian Barbara Pyrke was born in Bromley, a suburb of London, on Feb. 20, 1926. Her father ran a general store, and her mother was a homemaker and talented performer, whose father had forbidden her from singing or dancing. She died in a car accident when Ms. Lynne was 13.
In her 2011 memoir, “A Dancer in Wartime,” Lynne wrote that she dedicated her career to her mother. She said she experienced a spiritual vision during an early performance with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company, before an audience that included the royal family.
“There was my mother above and all around me, willing me to dance with all my soul. . . . We were alone, entering the world she had always wanted for me, and I offered up my dance to her.”
Lynne often noted that her dance career was something of an accident, the result of a chance suggestion from a medical specialist. Hyperactive as a child, she was known as “Wriggle Bottom” at school and taken to a doctor who sat patiently while Lynne’s mother explained that young Gillie — noticeably squirming — couldn’t sit still.