David Nillo, a Dancer of Ballet and Broadway, Dies at 89
David Nillo, a founding member of American Ballet Theater and a dancer in many musical theater productions, died in September in Los Angeles. He was 89 and lived in Hollywood.
Mr. Nillo was a versatile dancer, at home in ballet and modern dance, and in Broadway and film musicals. He studied in Chicago with Bentley Stone, a ballet teacher and choreographer who incorporated elements of Americana into his productions, and Kurt Graff, a German modern dancer who borrowed elements of ballet technique.
Mr. Nillo danced in Chicago in 1939 with the Page-Stone Ballet (directed by Ruth Page and Stone), the Graff Ballet and the Federal Theater Dance Project. Moving to New York later in 1939, he studied ballet with Anton Dolin, Antony Tudor and Edward Caton and modern dance with Hanya Holm. He joined Ballet Theater, as American Ballet Theater was originally known, for its first season in 1940.
Mr. Nillo is survived by a longtime friend, Christina Babst.