Musical theater performer and Choreographer who appeared in the 1943 Broadway production of Something for the Boys and choreographed the 1951 Broadway staging of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
He made his professional acting debut in a 1942 touring production of Shakespeare's Macbeth and directed his first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, starring Petula Clark and Peter O'Toole, in 1969.
He directed several Academy Award-nominated films, including Funny Lady (1975), The Turning Point (1977), and Steel Magnolias (1989).
The child of Martha and Louis Ross, he grew up in New York City. His first marriage, to Dancer Nora Kaye, ended with Kaye's death in 1987; he later married and subsequently divorced Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's sister Lee Radziwill.
He directed the acclaimed 1975 cinematic adaptation of Neil Simon's play The Sunshine Boys and later directed the Broadway production of Simon's I Ought to Be in Pictures.
