Buzz Miller

Vernal Miller

(1923-12-23)December 23, 1923

February 23, 1999(1999-02-23) (aged 75)

Dancer

Early life and Training[edit]

Vernal Miller, known from boyhood as Buzz, was born in Snowflake, Arizona, a small town in Navajo County founded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Raised in a family with three brothers and two sisters, he was educated in local schools. After graduation from high school, he joined the U.S. Army and spent two years as a front lines messenger on active duty in World War II. He was honorably discharged from military service after being injured in combat. In 1947, when he was 23 years old, he began his dance studies with Mia Slavenska, a glamorous Croatian ballerina, in Hollywood, California.[2] After only nine months of study, he got his first professional dancing job.

1947 – Magdalena: A Musical Adventure. A Brazilian folk operetta with music by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Choreography by Jack Cole.

1952 – Two's Company. A musical revue with music by Vernon Duke and lyrics by Ogden Nash, starring Bette Davis. Choreography by . Miller had featured billing, along with Nora Kaye and Maria Karnilova.

Jerome Robbins

1953 – Me and Juliet. A musical comedy by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, with dances and musical numbers arranged by Robert Alton. Miller was a principal dancer, partnering Joan McCracken in "Keep It Gay," a dance number in act 1.

1953 – Pal Joey. A revival of the 1940 musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Choreography by Robert Alton. With Harold Lang, Helen Gallagher, Elaine Stritch, and Bob Fosse.

1954 – The Pajama Game. A musical with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, directed by George Abbott and Jerome Robbins. Choreography by Bob Fosse. The show was regularly stopped by applause for the dance number called "Steam Heat," performed by Buzz Miller, Carol Haney, and Peter Gennaro.

1956 – Bells Are Ringing. A musical with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne. Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. Starring Judy Holiday as a lovelorn telephone operator. Miller played her friend Carl and was her partner in "Mu-cha-cha," the dance number that opens act 2.

1959 – Redhead. A murder-mystery musical set in Victorian London, with music and lyrics by Albert Hague and Dorothy Fields, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and Donald MacKayle. Created especially for Gwen Verdon in the title role. As the Jailer, Miller was her partner in the dance number called "Pick-Pocket Tango."

1962 – Bravo Giovanni. A musical conceived as a vehicle for opera star Cesare Siepi. With music by Milton Schafer and choreography by Carol Haney and Buzz Miller. Miller danced with Maria Karnilova in a big production number called "The Kangaroo."

1963 – Hot Spot. A musical with music by and staging by Herbert Ross. A historic flop, in which Miller danced with Carmen de Lavallade.

Mary Rodgers

1964 – Funny Girl. A blockbuster hit starring Barbra Streisand as comedienne Fanny Brice. Music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Rob Merrill. Choreography by Carol Haney and Jerome Robbins. Miller danced with Streisand and the chorus in "Cornet Man," act 1, scene 6.

Later years[edit]

In 1978, Miller was a founding member and reconstructionist of the American Dance Machine, a company and briefly a school devoted to preserving the great dance numbers from Broadway and television shows. He was responsible for restaging Carol Haney's choreography for "Me and My Girl," first presented on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962. He also taught master dance classes at many universities in the United States. He was regarded as one of the leading teachers of jazz dance in the country.


Openly gay for most of his life, Miller had a five-year liaison with Jerome Robbins in the 1950s.[10] Thereafter, in 1957, he met Alan Groh and began a relationship that lasted for some thirty years, until Groh's death in 1996.[11] Miller himself died of emphysema in Manhattan in 1999. He was 76 years old. [12]


His archives and papers are held in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.[13]

Mimi Swartz, "Buzz and Alan" in The New Yorker, August 1998

Norma Skurka, "An apartment that evolved" in The New York Times, September 23, 1973

Miller's page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections