Ballet choreographer.
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 517-519. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Co-Ballet Master at the New York City Ballet.
He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1988 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington D.C.
In May, 1953, Robbins was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He admitted to having belonged to the American Communist Party's Theatrical Transient Group between 1943 and 1947, and also named eight colleagues as members.
Only three times in Academy Award history have director-collaborators been nominated for Best Directing Oscars: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007). (Wise/Robbins and the Coens actually won the award).
The only individual to win the Best Director Academy Award for their sole feature film directorial credit.
When he and Robert Wise won the Best Director Oscar in 1962 for West Side Story (1961), it was the first time that a directing Oscar was shared among collaborators.
Won five Tony Awards: as Best Choreographer, in 1948 for "High Button Shoes" and in 1958 for "West Side Story;" as both Best Director (Musical) and Best Choreographer, in 1965 for "Fiddler on the Roof;" and as Best Director (Musical) in 1989 for "Jerome Robbins' Broadway." He was nominated four other times: as Best Choreographer, in 1957 with Bob Fosse for "Bells Are Ringing;" as Best Director (Musical), in 1960 for "Gypsy;" and, two in 1963, as Producer (Dramatic) and as co-producer of Best Play nominee "Mother Courage and Her Children"