Key Takeaways
- Michael Jackson was inspired by Bob Fosse, Cab Calloway, and more.
- A clip of Bob Fosse in the 1974 film The Little Prince has been going viral online with people noting similarities to Jackson’s dancing.
- The late King of Pop’s influences have received renewed attention following the release of the hit biopic ‘Michael,’ in theaters now.
- MJ, like other artists, is part of a shared lineage that continues to build with every generation.
The influences on Michael Jackson’s artistry have become a renewed talking point in the wake of the release of Michael, the Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic depicting the period between the King of Pop’s Jackson 5 rise and his Bad-focused tour in the late ‘80s.
Among such influences, of course, is Bob Fosse, the late choreographer and dancer whose 1974 film The Little Prince proved hugely impactful on MJ’s work. A clip from the film has gone viral in recent days, spurring a larger conversation about not only MJ’s own influences and references, but also those of his biggest inspirations.
Often lost in such conversations is the profound debt owed to Black originators like Cab Calloway, an undeniably powerful influence on Jackson and Fosse both, with his influence also apparent in the work of James Brown and other stars.
Below, we take a closer look at the Fosse clip currently making the rounds, all while touching on the larger story behind the influences MJ pulled from in his own work.
You can see traces of Michael Jackson’s aesthetic in 1974’s The Little Prince
In the wake of Michael’s release, fans have zeroed in on a clip from The Little Prince, a 1974 film starring Bob Fosse as The Snake. Steven Warner, Richard Kiley, Gene Wilder, and Donna McKechnie also starred.
MJ’s “Billie Jean” and “Smooth Criminal,” specifically, would appear to have tipped their proverbial hat to Fosse. At one point, as highlighted in this Smithsonian piece, Jackson attempted to get Fosse, who died in 1987 at the age of 60, to helm his “Thriller” video, albeit unsuccessfully.
Bob Fosse won an Oscar for directing Cabaret
While Fosse has multiple nominations to his name, his lone Academy Award victory came with Cabaret, his 1972 musical starring Liza Minnelli, famously a friend of Jackson’s.
Bob Fosse has his own biopic
First came 1979’s semi-autobiographical All That Jazz, the Fosse-directed musical drama starring Jaws actor Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon, a character inspired by Fosse himself. Fast forward 40 years, and you have Fosse/Verdon, the FX miniseries starring Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse and Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdon, Bob’s wife at the time of his 1987 death.
Who were Fosse’s influences?
Virtually every piece of art you’ve interacted with in your entire life is nodding at, or deeply inspired by, something that came before it. Art is a shared history. Fosse himself drew from (among others) Fred Astaire, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Jack Cole.
MJ’s references, too, were vast. The classic 1988 video for the aforementioned “Smooth Criminal,” for example, as detailed in the below clip from Turner Classic Movies narrated by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, was inspired, at least in part, by The Band Wagon, a 1953 musical led by Astaire.
“All of ‘Smooth Criminal’ was inspired by this murder ballad mystery that is the last third of the musical they present in The Band Wagon, down to the white suit and the toughs he fights through dance,” Miranda said. “But it's really this remarkable kind of showoff [of] how many great different kinds of numbers can [director] Vincente Minnelli put in one movie.”
Pointing to what he sees as the essence of all “theater artists,” Miranda added, “We just want to be a part of where the good stuff is happening.”
For Jackson and Fosse both, you can’t talk about influence without mentioning the historic and lasting impact of the aforementioned Cab Calloway, the jazz and vaudeville legend whose moves are frequently cited as having ultimately inspired MJ’s iconic moonwalk.
That move, said to have been referred to as “the backslide” or “the buzz” in earlier iterations, also has roots in the work of tap dancer Bill Bailey.
