The Truth Behind Robin Williams’ “Fosse!” Dance in The Birdcage | The Rest of the Story | ep 1

In this episode of The Rest of the Story within Hey, Dancer!, we dive into the iconic “Fosse, Fosse, Fosse” dance scene from The Birdcage. Robin Williams’ whirlwind of modern dance has captivated audiences for decades, with many believing the moment was entirely improvised.

But was it?

Join me as I unravel the truth behind this legendary scene. From conflicting accounts in Hollywood biographies to the overlooked contributions of choreographer Vincent Paterson, this story is a fascinating look at artistry, credit, and the often-invisible role of choreographers in shaping iconic moments.

Whether you’re a dancer, choreographer, or just a fan of The Birdcage, this episode offers surprising insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and an important conversation about giving credit where it’s due.

Listen now and discover the rest of the story. 🎧✨

Check out my ⁠Return to Dance docuseries!⁠

Watch this podcast and check out the Fosse dance scene, social media comments, Mike Nichols’ biography, etc.

Support my Instagram — where I post daily dance inspo, insights and fun! ⁠@backtogreat

Check out the full interview with Vincent Paterson (noted in this podcast) HERE! Credit to: @mrnmister

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Picture this. Robin Williams as Armand Goldman in the Birdcage, dazzling us with an over-the-top

(00:06):
yet perfectly controlled whirlwind tour of modern dance. Michael Kidd, Twyla Tharp, Bob Fosse,
Martha Graham, Madonna, the scene feels like an eruption of Williams' comic brilliance,
seemingly improvised in the moment. Many believe it was, but was it?
If you are listening to the episode, you may not be able to know that I'm actually in a whole

(00:30):
different shirt with no fancy lights and camera and microphone. I just decided to film this right
here on a whim because I didn't introduce myself nor the name of the podcast, and that is something I'm
realizing I tend to do. So let's correct that in this moment. Hi, my name is Miller. I'm the host
of Hey, Dancer! and this weekly series called The Rest of the Story, where I dive deep into

(00:53):
the history of dance legends and giving you anecdotes about their life you probably don't know,
and also sometimes moments in dance history. And today is one such episode. So before we get into it,
please rate, follow, subscribe, share, like all the above. It goes a long way. I have a sneaking

(01:14):
suspicion that somebody in your dance fam will love this episode. To begin, let's just get right into
the actual scene. This episode is about from the bird cage for full context. What about me?
What do I do? Do I just stand here like an object? No, you do an eclectic celebration of a dance.
You do fosse, fosse, fosse, you do martha graham, martha graham, martha graham, or twyla, twyla, twyla,

(01:37):
or Michael Kidd, Michael Kid, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna,
but you keep it all inside. Now, if you check out comments online, you'll find a slew of people
who say he improvised it. And even articles continue to perpetuate the belief that Robin Williams
improvised the Fosse, Fosse, Fosse scene entirely. Even Google AI, when asked by me,

(02:02):
confidently declares, yes, Robin Williams improvised the Fosse, Fosse, Fosse dance number
in the 1996 movie The Bird Cage. I even put this up as a quiz on my IG stories recently,
which I'll be honest played a role behind this podcast because the overwhelming majority,
1,285 people said that Williams did indeed improv the iconic moment with only 55 people saying

(02:29):
he didn't. That means 96% believed it was entirely improvised and failed my dance quiz of the day.
Yes, I do daily dance quizzes and polls on my IG stories. You should be following me there, just saying.
But where does this idea come from? Well, one major source is Mark Harris' biography of director

(02:52):
Mike Nichols. Mike Nichols' "A Life." Mike Nichols directed The Bird Cage if that wasn't obvious.
Here is an excerpt from the book on this very topic.
In rehearsals, Williams led his instincts, carrying him anywhere. Lame eventually felt comfortable
enough to join him. That process yielded one of Williams' most inspired moments,

(03:13):
a scene in which Armand is choreographing a number and shows Albert what he wants
by doing a furiously compressed history of modern dance from Michael Kid to Twilight Tharp,
to Bob Bossy to Madonna. Stop, Nichols yelled, choking with laughter. I don't want to see this again
until we're doing it. How does it end? How do we get out of it? It was Lane who provided Williams

(03:37):
with a punchline that ends the scene, but you keep it all inside. To reiterate when talking about
this specific scene, quote, "Williams let his instincts carry him anywhere." That process yielded
one of Williams' most inspired moments. The wording strongly implies that the moment was improvised,
fueling the widespread belief since the book's release in 2021. Now, according to Vincent Patterson,

(04:03):
who served as choreographer, I'll say that again, choreographer, on the film, the original script
was Sparse. And to clarify, when I say the script was Sparse, I mean this particular scene,
there wasn't much written. And now, let's cut to Vincent Patterson himself telling the story.
So, I was down on the set that day that they were shooting that scene with Nathan.

(04:28):
And Robin came right, they had done one take, and all that was written in the script was that
as written, the dancer before Robin leaves the broom, the dancer says, "Well, what do I do? Do I just
stand here and look like an object?" And all that was written was, "No, you do the eclectic

(04:48):
celebration of the dance, and you walked off." That was it. So, they did a couple takes of that.
Robin came to me and he said, "Dance, come here." I'm so tired of playing the straight gay man.
I've got to be funny. I have to do something funny. Can you create something funny for me? And I
said, "When?" He goes, "Now, now, can you do it now?" And I said, "Oh my God, all right, we'll go do

(05:12):
another take or two. Let me go work on something." And then you come running back and I'll teach you
to. So, that's what he did. I thought it to him behind the set, and he went back out. They shot it,
and he did the eclectic celebration of the dance. Well, of course, everybody thought he was improvising,
and everybody started laughing, so the take was no good. Mike Nichols and Elaine May were laughing as well,

(05:36):
as was Nathan Lane. Mike said, "That was very, very funny, Robin, but let's do what we did before."
And Robin said, "Well, I didn't do that. That was Vince. Vince created that for me." And Mike said,
"Well, let's go back and do what Elaine wrote." And Robin got the hands and knees and crawled
across the set and pulled on his pant legs and said, "Well, these, Mike, please shoot it, please shoot it."

(06:03):
And Mike said, "All right, boys, this is what we'll do. When I'm happy that I have the version that I
want, we'll do a couple takes of this." And then, so we have it, but I just went, I don't want either
want you to be depressed if it doesn't show up in the movie. So, we never thought it was ever going
to show up in the movie. We really didn't. And then, Elaine, of course, later wrote those words in

(06:29):
there that I had created for him, you know. And then it became part of the script, and as we all know,
part of the film, one of the most exciting and fun highlights of the whole film.
And yet, the misinformation somehow continues to spread. When the Huffington Post reviewed Mark
Harris' biography on Mike Nichols, they repeated the same error, describing the scene as one of Williams'

(06:54):
"greatest improvisations," end quote. So, Patterson himself, a fierce defender of truth and his
work, contacted the publication to correct this misrepresentation. And the Huffington Post,
to their credit, issued a formal correction. Quote a previous version of this article indicated

(07:14):
that Robin Williams alone improvised the Madonna scene, as implied in the biography. Vincent Patterson,
who directed Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour, and is credited as the Bird Cage choreographer,
contacted Huff Post to say that it was he who designed the sequence at Williams' request, end quote.
Great. So now you officially know the story, except we don't. Here's where I got thrown

(07:41):
for a loop in my research. Hours into piecing together this story, and already confident in the
narrative, I stumbled across a New York Times article from 1996 that nobody is talking about.
I couldn't believe it, to be honest. Here are lines from the actual article, and I'll let you know
when I finish reading bits from the article. But every time I say quote, end quote,

(08:07):
that's Mr. Williams in the article, speaking. Okay, got it. Quote, it just came about, end quote.
Mr. Williams said cheerfully in a recent conversation, quote, "Armond," that's his character's name again,
is this choreographer, and it came out in rehearsal one day, end quote. The whirlwind tour through
modern dance came in a bit of improvisation by Mr. Williams, with Mr. Nichols adding the line

(08:32):
about keeping it inside. Mr. Williams did not tinker much with it when he recreated the scene for
the camera. Quote, when you improvise something, it all comes into place, end quote, he said.
But what about his knowledge of dance? Quote, "Broadway in Juilliard was how I knew," end quote,
said Mr. Williams, a graduate of the Juilliard School. Quote, "We had all these dance teachers,"

(08:56):
end quote. He reeled off several names, then skitted to a halt. Now I'm finished with the New
York Times article. Again, those were selected bits from it. Now I wasn't expecting to find this,
and it really thwarted the direction I thought I was going. It added yet another layer of complexity
to the story. Williams described it as spontaneous, yet Patterson's account shows us the behind the

(09:23):
scene's choreography. Or if we dissect Williams' words, it kind of gets even weirder because saying
improvisation came out of rehearsal implies that the moment we see on the screen was eventually
shaped, refined, or even planned in some way during the process, making it less about pure

(09:45):
spontaneity and more about creative evolution, which would prove Patterson's point. But here's
the kicker, to me at least. The New York Times article doesn't even mention Vincent Patterson at all.
Not once. It also clearly implies or even states that Williams had immense dance knowledge from
which to pull from for seemingly on the spot improv. Like why would they say that, except to suggest

(10:11):
that Robin Williams had the knowledge to improv the scene. You know on the spot. So what happened
here? Was this the Times' choice, an editorial oversight, or did Williams intentionally or unintentionally
leave out Patterson's role? Will probably never know. What we do know is that without Patterson's

(10:32):
choreography, there would be no fussy, fussy, fussy. The very fact that Patterson was not mentioned in
the New York Times article, or the biography on Nichols, which literally has a whole sequence on this
very scene speaks to a much larger issue. The role of choreographers is often invisible. The

(10:54):
contributions over shadowed or uncredited or unappreciated or all the above. It's not just about the
birdcage. This underscores a systemic problem in the entertainment industry. One that Patterson has
dedicated much of his career to fighting, ironically. He has been a driving force behind the choreographer's

(11:15):
guild. A collective formed to advocate for proper credit protections and respect for choreographers in
the entertainment industry. choreographers, even those behind iconic moments like Patterson's work in
the birdcage, have historically struggled to receive recognition. For years, there were no pensions,
protections, or even consistent credit for their creative contributions. Thanks to efforts by Patterson

(11:42):
and others like Mandy Moore and Kenny Ortega, the choreographer's guild is finally making strides.
From securing proper credits on projects to fighting for union protections, the guild is paving the
way for change. Patterson's story and this moment serves as a powerful reminder. Without choreographers,

(12:04):
these moments simply don't exist. It's time we give credit where credit is due. Though I'm not a
betting man, I'd put all my money on Patterson's account. Thank you very much. It aligns all too well
with the unfortunate history of choreographers being overshadowed in Hollywood. And now you know

(12:25):
the rest of the story. Hey, if you feel like you learned something new after listening or watching
this rest of the story episode, I know I did when I was researching it. Please take a moment and show
your support by maybe sharing the podcast. I mean, somebody you know loves the birdcage. They
probably find this story fascinating, especially if they're a dancer, a dance teacher, or a choreographer.

(12:51):
And rate the show, review it, and follow and subscribe. It means a lot. Thank you so much. See you next time.
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