LeRoy Prinz: Fighter Ace and Hollywood Choreographer by Trevor Tutt

 

LeRoy Prinz was born in St. Joseph, MO in 1895. The son of Edward A. Prinz, dancing was ingrained in LeRoy's DNA. Edward was the proprietor of the Prinz Dancing Academy, an institution which taught dancing well into the 1940s. The academy was located at 10th and Frederick. LeRoy was sent to boarding school, but ran away in 1911, hoping a train to New York where started a song and dance act with a young black man he met along the way named Buck.

 

Prinz and Buck worked the streets for a year until LeRoy traveled to Europe as a cabin boy. LeRoy jumped ship and traveled across France, teaching the American style of dancing for food and board. He joined the French Foreign Legion as a bugler and when WWI broke out, he trained as a fighter pilot and joined the 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron alongside Theodore Roosevelt's son, Quentin, who died in combat during the war. LeRoy gained the nickname of Crash Ace, a designation received for bringing down 14-18 enemy planes. Prinz also claimed to have been injured during the war, carrying a silver plate in his head from a crash.

 

He returned to America in 1919 and after completing college toured with various aviation and dancing shows. He claimed to have choreographed shows for Al Capone while living in Chicago. When he left Chicago, he worked as a dance director in New York, Florida, Mexico, and Cuba. In the 1930s he directed dance sequences for Paramount Pictures and in the 1940s he became the dancing director for Warner Brothers. His film credits are too great to list in this article, but he played a pivotal role in early cinema. He was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Dance Direction and won a Special Achievement Award at the 15th Golden Globes alongside Zsa Zsa Gabor and Bob Hope. He was a friend of Ronald Reagan, having met during his acting days, and LeRoy was hired to choreograph entertainment for the 1976 Republican National Convention and several presidential inaugurations.

 

He passed away on September 15, 1983 and was interred in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Though it is known that he greatly exaggerated his life events, his adventurous and brave acts fighting with and for the French in WWI are commendable. His life mirrors another famous, forgotten Hollywood player born in St. Joseph, Ruth Warrick, who's stories seem to have been forgotten through the ages. To learn more about Ms. Warrick's career, please visit https://stjosephmuseum.wixsite.com/ruthwarrick