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Sammy Lee

1890 - 1968 (age 77) • Directing

Sammy Lee will best be remembered for his great contributions as Dance Director of many important musicals during Hollywood's golden age. He first achieved fame in New York as dance director of the highly successful Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. After contributing dance routines for Ziegfeld's famous productions "Showboat", "Rio Rita", and the last of the "Midnight Frolics", he signed with MGM studios early in 1929. His imaginative dance routines included overhead shots a year before Buzby Berkeley's work in "Whoopee". He brought the prestige of the Ziegfeld image to MGM's early musical talkies. Sammy Lee was nominated twice for an academy award for best dance direction, in 1935 for "King Of Burlesque", and 1937 for "Ali Baba Goes To Town", both at 20th Century Fox. He would return to MGM after a stint at RKO (1937) and directed shorts and choreographed war time musicals. Smaller studios benefited from his talents in 1944 and 1945. During this time he choreographed Columbia's "Carolina Blues" and Republic's "Earl Carroll's Vanities" before he retired with Paramount's 1945 release, "Out Of This World". Sammy Lee's productive career spanned an impressive sixteen years in Hollywood, and gave us many of cinema's most entertaining moments!

Known For

Cavalcade

55%

Stage Director

1933

Abilene Town

54%

Choreographer

1946

Ali Baba Goes to Town

60%

Choreographer

1937

Free and Easy

61%

Choreographer

1930

Stairway to Light

71%

Director

1945

Doughboys

60%

Choreographer

1930

King of Burlesque

63%

Choreographer

1936

Honolulu

65%

Choreographer

1939

Some Time Soon

Director

Beyond Our Own

90%

Director

1947

Abilene Town

54%

Choreographer

1946

Stairway to Light

71%

Director

1945

The Immortal Blacksmith

80%

Director

1944

Forgotten Treasure

73%

Director

1943

Portrait of a Genius

90%

Director

1943

Who's Superstitious?

67%

Director

1943

The Film That Was Lost

75%

Director

1942

The Woman in the House

65%

Director

1942

Strange Testament

75%

Director

1941

Out of Darkness

70%

Director

1941

Rodeo Dough

64%

Director

1940

Soak the Old

64%

Director

1940

The Hidden Master

80%

Director

1940

Rhumba Rhythm at the Hollywood La Conga

40%

Director

1939

Somewhat Secret

65%

Director

1939

Honolulu

65%

Choreographer

1939

The Greener Hills

63%

Director

1939

Men of Steel

60%

Director

1938

Ali Baba Goes to Town

60%

Choreographer

1937

New Shoes

57%

Director

1936

King of Burlesque

63%

Choreographer

1936

Caravan

65%

Choreographer

1934

Caravane

100%

Choreographer

1934

It's Great to Be Alive

65%

Choreographer

1933

Life in the Raw

100%

Choreographer

1933

Cavalcade

55%

Stage Director

1933

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