Harold Lang, Lead Dancer of Ballet, Broadway, Dies

Harold Lang, a ballet and Broadway dancer who created the role of the First Sailor in Jerome Robbins’ “Fancy Free” in 1944 and revived the title role in “Pal Joey” in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, has died.

Lang was believed to be 60 and died Friday at his home in Chico, Calif., after a short illness.

A native of Daly City, Lang delivered telegrams as a youth and in 1940 took one backstage at a San Francisco theater where a ballet company was rehearsing. “I just stood around for hours watching the kids sweat,” he said in an interview years later.

The next day he returned to the dance training he had abandoned a few years earlier and studied under William Christensen at San Francisco Opera Ballet.

He joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in New York in 1941 and moved to Ballet Theatre in 1943. His other New York credits included solo roles in “Interplay” and in George Balanchine’s “Waltz Academy” with the New York City Ballet.

He also performed in the Ballet Theatre premiere of “Graduation Ball” and created the juvenile lead in Robbins’ “Look Ma, I’m Dancing” in 1948. That same year he also became the juvenile (dancing) lead in “Kiss Me Kate.”

Lang appeared in the 1959 revival of “On the Town” and the 1952 West Coast revival of “Pal Joey” and later did several television shows, including Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town.”

Additional Broadway credits include “I Can Get It for You Wholesale,” “The Cole Porter Revue,” “Ziegfeld Follies,” “Shangri-la,” “Make a Wish,” “Three to Get Ready” and “Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston.” In 1947, 1948 and 1952, he was awarded the Donaldson Award as best dancer on Broadway. For the last several years he had been teaching dance at California State University, Chico.

He is survived by a brother. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his name are being asked to the American Cancer Society.