The father of LeRoy Jerome Prinz (1895-1983) owned a dance academy, which might be assumed to have contributed to his son’s career as a dance director. But Jack Cole, who might be considered to know, apparently asserted that Prinz “didn’t know a bloody thing about dancing”. Most of the dances Prinz directed for Madam Satan would seem to support that view, the exception being ‘Low Down’, which is performed by Lillian Roth and LeRoy’s brother Eddie, which it is possible to surmise was choreographed by Eddie himself.
Knowledge of terpsichore notwithstanding, LeRoy Prinz directed the dances for scores of pictures at Paramount and, later, Warner Bros. His approach was conservative and generally showed little interest in dance skills.
Prinz was known as a shameless self publicist, claiming that early in life he was a cabin boy, a test pilot (he did serve with distinction as a pilot in the First World War), a dancer in a bordello, an adviser to the Mexican government, and had a working relationship with gangsters including Al Capone.
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