Obituary - Alan Johnson, choreographer known for his work with Mel Brooks

Died: July 8, 2018

ALAN Johnson, who has died aged 81, was an acclaimed choreographer best known for his work with the comedian and film-maker Mel Brooks and in particular Springtime for Hitler, the riotous showpiece of the 1968 comedy The Producers that features goose-stepping showgirls and dancers forming a giant swirling swastika.

There were some, including Johnson for a moment, who wondered whether the musical number was going too far, especially as the lyrics pushed the joke even further: "Springtime for Hitler and Germany/Winter for Poland and France". But Brooks was determined to go for it and, with choreography by Johnson and music by John Morris, it was a triumph of comedy and campery.

Johnson and Brooks first started working together after meeting at a party where Brooks regaled the dancer and choreographer with his idea for The Producers. The story was to follow a desperate debt-ridden producer (played in the final film by Zero Mostel) and his accountant (Gene Wilder) who dream up a scheme to stage a terrible flop and make off with the investors' money - and what could guarantee a flop more than a musical about Hitler? Sadly for them, the show turns out to be a huge hit.

Johnson went on to work with Brooks many other times. In Young Frankenstein in 1974, he staged the musical number in which the monster dances to Irving Berlin's Puttin' on the Ritz. He also played with musical theatre conventions again in History of the World, Part I in 1981 when he gave the Spanish Inquisition the musical treatment.

Johnson had come to musical theatre as a dancer. Born in Philadelphia to a shipyard worker father and waitress mother, he first started dancing at a young age and after high school moved to New York to find work as a dancer.

He began his Broadway career when he was just 20, landing an understudy role in the original production of West Side Story. Before long, he was promoted to one of the members of the Jets and later was given responsibility for learning the steps of every dancer in the show so he could fill in for injured performers. Later, this intimate knowledge led to Johnson become the custodian of Jerome Robbins's original choreography and he staged many productions of the musical from the 1970s to the 2000s, including in Edinburgh in 1997.

After the success of The Producers and Johnson's other work with Brooks, Johnson worked frequently with Shirley MacLaine, choreographing two Broadway shows for her. He also won an Emmy for a TV special he did with MacLaine.

Later in his career, Johnson was given the chance to direct by Brooks, with mixed results. His first film, To Be or Not To Be in 1983 was a remake of a 1942 comedy about a troupe staging a show in Nazi-occupied Poland. Three years later he made a science fiction movie Solarbabies which was widely panned.

In all, Johnson won three Emmy Awards and five nominations for his television specials and a Tony nomination for the musical Legs Diamond in 1988.

Johnson, who had been suffering from Parkinson's disease, is survived by his sister.