Dancer and educator Leah Bass-Baylis, a household consultant, confirmed his demise however didn’t give a trigger.
Mr. Battle was solely 18 when he made his Broadway debut in January 1975, enjoying the Scarecrow within the authentic Broadway manufacturing of “The Wiz.” A classically educated dancer, he had auditioned for the musical as a member of the refrain, in assist of an all-Black solid that included Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, Tiger Haynes because the Tin Man, Ted Ross because the Lion, Dee Dee Bridgewater as the great witch Glinda and André De Shields as the nice and highly effective wizard of the present’s title.
However throughout a pre-Broadway tryout in Philadelphia in 1974, the manufacturing’s Scarecrow, Stu Gilliam, got here off the stage sick. There have been no understudies on the time, in accordance with William F. Brown, who wrote the present’s ebook, though Mr. Battle had discovered a lot of the character’s strains whereas recovering from a sprained ankle earlier within the 12 months. Between scenes, he was rushed into costume and prepped for the stage.
“All these individuals have been screaming at me: ‘Maintain your head up! Let me get this eyelash on right here!’” he informed The Washington Publish in 1981. “One man was placing on make-up, one other one feeding me strains, somebody was placing on my wig, and Stephanie [Mills] was making an attempt to inform me good luck.” He made it via the present, he informed another interviewer, with assist from eye alerts and Mills, who was “pulling me by the straw.”
Mr. Battle took over the function completely, delivering what New York Instances theater critic Clive Barnes known as a “gracefully loose-limbed efficiency” as a member of the comedian trio that accompanies Dorothy on the street to Oz. The present received seven Tony Awards, together with finest musical, and was tailored right into a 1978 movie starring Diana Ross, with Michael Jackson changing Mr. Battle because the Scarecrow.
For Mr. Battle, the musical was speculated to mark solely a quick departure from his ballet profession. “All I wished to do was get again to ballet class,” he told the New York Instances of his early days because the Scarecrow, a personality he ended up enjoying for 2 years. “Nevertheless it loosened me up and launched me to a world I didn’t know a lot about. In ballet, taking 4 lessons a day, you don’t know a lot about anything that’s occurring.”
Mr. Battle went on to embrace musical theater, showing in 4 Broadway exhibits between 1981 and 1991. He received Tony Awards for 3 of them: as a stunning however unnamed performer within the Duke Ellington revue “Subtle Women” in 1981; because the title character’s tap-dancing uncle, Dipsey Bates, in “The Tap Dance Kid” in 1984; and as John Thomas, a energetic Marine stationed in Saigon on the shut of the Vietnam Warfare, in “Miss Saigon” in 1991.
All three awards have been for finest featured actor in a musical. No performer, residing or lifeless, has received the prize greater than Mr. Battle.
“His method was impeccable,” mentioned his good friend Debbie Allen, the actor, dancer and director, who met Mr. Battle in New York within the early Nineteen Seventies and labored with him on the choreography for 2 Academy Awards ceremonies. “He was educated in ballet, however he might tap-dance like he was one of many Nicholas Brothers. He was athletic — he had legs that went up like mine. He was kicking his head each time his leg went up!”
Bass-Baylis, who carried out with Mr. Battle in “The Faucet Dance Child,” mentioned in an e-mail that he had “the sheer drive and energy to leap so excessive that you simply thought he was flying.” He was additionally strikingly versatile: “No matter style of dance he was introduced with, via exhausting work and perseverance, he appeared to have the ability to superimpose his method and create one thing new and higher than the unique.”
Mr. Battle mentioned it took time to department out past ballet. As soon as dubbed “Clubfoot Battle” by dancers who laughed at his faucet makes an attempt, he discovered to do a correct faucet dance solely after being solid in “Subtle Women,” which starred arguably the world’s foremost faucet dancer, Gregory Hines. He had struggled via a soft-shoe routine for his audition however then pressured himself to review, taking intensive lessons with faucet grasp Henry LeTang earlier than performing routines for songs like “I’ve Received To Be a Rug Cutter.”
His dancing led to work with main administrators together with Bob Fosse, for the musical revue “Dancin’,” and Michael Bennett, as a substitute actor within the authentic Broadway manufacturing of “Dreamgirls.” Starting in 1983, he was featured within the musical as R&B celebrity James “Thunder” Early, succeeding actor Cleavant Derricks within the function of a James Brown-like singer. The half went to Eddie Murphy when “Dreamgirls” was tailored right into a 2006 movie, though Mr. Battle made it into the film as a automotive salesman turned file producer, a prime aide to the music govt performed by Jamie Foxx.
On-screen, Mr. Battle appeared in episodes of “Quantum Leap,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” as a tap-dancing demon who causes individuals to interrupt into track. He additionally labored as a choreographer, crafting routines for college students on the Baltimore College for the Arts earlier than working with entertainers together with Anita Baker, Joni Mitchell and Sister Sledge.
In 2006, he choreographed the Outkast film musical “Idlewild,” a Despair-era interval piece that featured greater than 100 dancers. The movie integrated acrobatic, Lindy Hop-inspired dance sequences in addition to a fusion of swing and hip-hop kinds that he dubbed “swop.”
“Choreographing is an entire completely different feeling,” he as soon as told the Instances. “You create it, you give it to the dancers and so they must convey it to life. And in the meantime, you’re standing backstage and pondering, ‘My life is in your palms; please make it work.’”
The third of 5 youngsters, Hinton Govorn Battle Jr. was born in Neubrücke, West Germany, on Nov. 29, 1956. His father was a U.S. Military sergeant whose postings took the household to Kansas and later to Washington. His mom was an accounting clerk. Unable to afford dance classes when she was rising up, she enrolled her two daughters as quickly as they turned 5, then made positive that Mr. Battle adopted go well with.
“I didn’t must do a lot pushing,” she informed The Publish in 1984. “He sang and he danced on a regular basis. If he obtained up from the desk to enter one other room, he danced his approach into the room.”
Mr. Battle studied at Washington’s Jones-Haywood College of Ballet, and at 13 he earned a scholarship to George Balanchine’s College of American Ballet in Manhattan. He lived there for just a few years, eating on canned tuna and struggling to stay on $200 a month, earlier than going again to Washington, the place certainly one of his sisters urged he audition for “The Wiz.” (The sister, Lettie, additionally made it to Broadway, getting a job as a dancer within the present.)
Onstage, Mr. Battle later performed the slick protection legal professional Billy Flynn in a Broadway revival of “Chicago” and starred as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in a touring manufacturing of “Ragtime.” In 2006, he co-directed an off-Broadway manufacturing of “Evil Lifeless: The Musical,” based mostly on the Sam Raimi movie franchise.
Mr. Battle by no means married. Survivors embody his two sisters.
Late in his profession, Mr. Battle targeted on educating, co-founding the Hinton Battle Dance Academy in Japan, the place he had carried out and taught grasp lessons. He was ready to attract on his success in addition to his occasional mishaps onstage — just like the time he fractured his hip after being knocked to the ground throughout a dance quantity in “The Wiz.”
That accident got here not lengthy after he went down a 10-foot prop tree, landed on his face and pierced his lip whereas in the course of his first track. The present went on, Mr. Battle informed The Publish, though for the remainder of the efficiency he thought to himself, “I can’t get blood on Dorothy’s costume.”
