Maurice Kusell; Actor, Dancer
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Maurice Kusell, a dancer, actor and choreographer whose credits date to the early days of sound motion pictures, is dead at 89.
His daughter, Maurina, said her father died Sunday in a Los Angeles hospital.
Kusell choreographed dances on both coasts before settling down in Hollywood in the infancy of talking pictures. Musicals became a favored form of filmmaking with the introduction of sound and Kusell was one of the first to use 100 to 300 dancers or more in intricate dance steps and stagings.
His credits from that era include “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “Be Yourself” with Fanny Brice, “Reaching for the Moon,” “Fox Follies,” “The Great Gabbo” and more.
In New York, he conceived “Paradise Parade” for Sally Rand, and at the Pasadena Playhouse the revue “Rhythm Madness.”
From 1922 to 1934, he ran a dance studio where he coached several film stars.
Besides his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Linda, another daughter, Laurina, and three grandchildren.
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