The Heartbreaking Death Of Broadway Legend Ann Reinking

Walter Mcbride/Getty Images By Hanna Claeson/Dec. 15, 2020 12:13 pm EST

Ann Reinking’s sister-in-law, Dahrla King, confirmed to Variety that the Tony-award-winning Broadway actress and dancer passed away on December 14, 2020. “She was visiting our brother in Washington state when she went to sleep and never woke up,” her family wrote in a statement, “Heaven has the best choreographer available now. I’m sure they are dancing up a storm up there!” Reinking was 71 years old when she passed. The New York Times reports that the cause of her death is still unknown. 

No one is questioning Reinking’s legacy. It takes only takes one look at Reinking on stage to understand how spectacular her talent was (via Youtube). Hollywood, accordingly, has shrouded itself in black. “Those incredible Legs. We will forever speak your name,” wrote Grey’s Anatomy executive producer, Debbie Allen. Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Melissa Fumero tweeted that she’d once taken a dance class with Reinking, “she was so magnetic. She noticed me once during the class and I fangirled so hard,” Fumero wrote, “there will never be another like her.” Broadway composer Joe Iconis described Ann Reinking as a woman full of “Charisma, specificity, heart, technique, and an undeniable, impossibly cool strangeness.” He toasted, “Here’s to one of the great multi-hyphenates who aggressively and glamorously never ever ever fit into a ’type.'”

The Heartbreaking Death Of Broadway Legend Ann Reinking

Walter Mcbride/Getty Images

By Hanna Claeson/Dec. 15, 2020 12:13 pm EST

Ann Reinking’s sister-in-law, Dahrla King, confirmed to Variety that the Tony-award-winning Broadway actress and dancer passed away on December 14, 2020. “She was visiting our brother in Washington state when she went to sleep and never woke up,” her family wrote in a statement, “Heaven has the best choreographer available now. I’m sure they are dancing up a storm up there!” Reinking was 71 years old when she passed. The New York Times reports that the cause of her death is still unknown. 

No one is questioning Reinking’s legacy. It takes only takes one look at Reinking on stage to understand how spectacular her talent was (via Youtube). Hollywood, accordingly, has shrouded itself in black. “Those incredible Legs. We will forever speak your name,” wrote Grey’s Anatomy executive producer, Debbie Allen. Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Melissa Fumero tweeted that she’d once taken a dance class with Reinking, “she was so magnetic. She noticed me once during the class and I fangirled so hard,” Fumero wrote, “there will never be another like her.” Broadway composer Joe Iconis described Ann Reinking as a woman full of “Charisma, specificity, heart, technique, and an undeniable, impossibly cool strangeness.” He toasted, “Here’s to one of the great multi-hyphenates who aggressively and glamorously never ever ever fit into a ’type.'”

No one is questioning Reinking’s legacy. It takes only takes one look at Reinking on stage to understand how spectacular her talent was (via Youtube). Hollywood, accordingly, has shrouded itself in black. “Those incredible Legs. We will forever speak your name,” wrote Grey’s Anatomy executive producer, Debbie Allen. Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Melissa Fumero tweeted that she’d once taken a dance class with Reinking, “she was so magnetic. She noticed me once during the class and I fangirled so hard,” Fumero wrote, “there will never be another like her.”

Broadway composer Joe Iconis described Ann Reinking as a woman full of “Charisma, specificity, heart, technique, and an undeniable, impossibly cool strangeness.” He toasted, “Here’s to one of the great multi-hyphenates who aggressively and glamorously never ever ever fit into a ’type.'”

Ann Reinking’s Broadway legacy

George Rose/Getty Images

But if her role in Pippin didn’t, her relationship with Fosse changed her life. “I knew I was falling in love, and it just got to be more and more. So by the time we did start going out I was pretty sunk,” she reflected to The New Yorker. Per The New York Times, their relationship, which lasted 6 years, was one of five serious relationships in her life. Reinking married four times and is survived by her last husband, the sportswriter Peter Talbert, and their son, Christopher.