Maurice Hines, Tap Dancer Extraordinaire, Dies at 80
Maurice Hines, the Broadway dancer, choreographer and actor who famously showcased his skills alongside his late younger brother, Gregory Hines, in a Nicholas Brothers-like act featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club, has died. He was 80.
Hines died Friday of natural causes at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, his cousin and rep, Richard Nurse, told The Hollywood Reporter. He lived there for a couple of years.
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The elegant, Harlem-born Hines received a Tony Award nomination in 1986 for best actor in a musical for Uptown … It’s Hot and starred again on Broadway in 2006’s Hot Feet. He conceived, directed and choreographed both productions.
In his THR review of the 2019 documentary Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back, Frank Scheck wrote that the Hines brothers had a falling out and didn’t talk for 10 years “for reasons that Maurice refuses to discuss to this day. He provides no explanation in the film, but instead takes every opportunity to praise Gregory and say how much he loved him.
“Nonetheless, the lingering emotional pain of their rift is deeply evident in such moments as Maurice sadly remembering that they didn’t even speak to each at their mother’s wedding, to her great distress. The film includes footage of Gregory’s Tony Award acceptance speech [in 1992] in which he pointedly thanks everyone in his family except his brother. He even takes pains, when mentioning his father, to add ‘Sr.’ so nobody misunderstands.”
They would reconcile before Gregory died of cancer at age 57 in 2003.
Maurice Robert Hines Jr. was born on Dec. 13, 1943, to Alma and Maurice Sr., a soda salesman who taught himself to play the drums and raised the family at W. 150th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
He and Gregory, 26 months his junior, studied tap with Henry LeTang in Manhattan and idolized the acrobatic Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, who dazzled audiences in clubs, theaters and on the screen.
Maurice was about 6 when he and Gregory made their professional debut as the tap-dancing Hines Kids, and they appeared on Broadway in 1954 as a newspaper boy and shoeshine boy, respectively, in The Girl in Pink Tights, choreographed by Agnes de Mille.
Their act was later known as the Hines Brothers and then Hines, Hines & Dad after they asked Maurice Sr. to come aboard in 1963, and they became regular performers at the Apollo Theater in New York. They also played in clubs around the U.S. and Europe and on The Tonight Show.
Gregory left in the early 1970s to go it alone and Maurice was cast as Nathan Detroit in a national tour of Guys and Dolls, but the two reunited for Eubie! on Broadway in 1979. Later, Maurice would step in for his brother in the Duke Ellington-inspired Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies in January 1982 and star in the national tour of Jelly’s Last Jam, for which Gregory had won his Tony.
In between, they performed as the feuding Williams Brothers — he was Clayton Williams, Gregory was Sandman Williams — in The Cotton Club (1984) in roles that mirrored their lives.
“In the movie, all our scenes were never scripted. Everything Gregory and I did was improvised,” he said in a 2008 interview. “[Coppola said], ‘I can’t give you dialogue on how to be brothers, just do that,’ and we did.” He noted that their “Crazy Rhythm!” number was done in just two takes.
Actress-dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen paid her respects to Hines in a post on X.
Maurice Hines, I was your first leading lady in a show, “Guys and Dolls” and I will always treasure our journey together. My tears are for my inability to speak with you or to hold you. I will ALWAYS SPEAK YOUR NAME. See you on the other side. ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/WcJElgfQAt
— Debbie Allen (@msdebbieallen) December 30, 2023
Maurice also co-directed and choreographed a national tour of the Louis Armstrong biography Satchmo and directed, choreographed and starred in a national tour of Harlem Suite alongside the likes of Jennifer Holliday, Stephanie Mills and Melba Moore.
In 2013, he performed a tribute to Gregory in Tappin’ Thru Life: An Evening With Maurice Hines, which played in Boston, New York and Washington.
Survivors include his nephew, Zach, and niece, Daria.
Nurse said Hines got on a Zoom call with several Broadway luminaries a couple of weeks ago who wanted to celebrate his 80th birthday with him.
In a 2020 interview, Maurice said his most cherished tap memory was dancing as a teen at Paris’ Olympia theater, where the Nicholas Brothers had also worked. “We were performing with Charles Aznavour, who was like the Frank Sinatra of France,” he recalled. “It was such a wonderful experience!”
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