Hinton Battle (born November 29, 1956) is an American actor, singer, dancer, and dance instructor. He has won three

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual c ...

s, all in the category of Featured Actor in a Musical. He was the first to portray the

Scarecrow A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesle ...

in the stage version of '' The Wiz'' (a role assumed by

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...

in the 1978 film adaptation).

Early life

Battle was born in Neubrücke, Hoppstädten, West Germany, part of the Baumholder Army Military Community, and raised in Washington, D.C. and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. His mother was a homemaker and his father a U.S. army officer. Battle's talent became apparent at the age of nine. After three years of studying ballet at the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet, he received a scholarship to The School of American Ballet where he studied until the age of fifteen under George Balanchine. On October 21, 1974, the new musical '' The Wiz'' opened at the

Morris A. Mechanic Theatre The Morris A. Mechanic Theatre was a playhouse at 1 South Charles Street that was part of the Charles Center of Baltimore, Maryland. The theatre was built by and named for owner Morris A. Mechanic who operated a number of theatres in the city ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

and then moved to Broadway's

Majestic Theatre Majestic Theatre or Majestic Theater may refer to: Australia * Majestic Theatre, Adelaide, former name of a theatre in King William Street, Adelaide, built 1916, now demolished * Majestic Theatre, Launceston, a former cinema in Tasmania designed ...

with a new cast on January 5, 1975. This is where Hinton made his Broadway debut starring as the

Career

He has appeared in fifteen films and television programmes, including '' Quantum Leap'', '' Dreamgirls'', and '' Touched by an Angel''. On ''Quantum Leap,'' he played Thames, the evil Observer from the future, in the final installment of the Evil Leaper trilogy of episodes. Battle played the role of the Cat in the first U.S. pilot for science-fiction sitcom ''Red Dwarf'', based on the British show of the same name. Notably, he guest starred as Sweet the jazz demon, in " Once More, with Feeling", '' Buffy The Vampire Slayers musical episode in which his spell forces the characters to sing their biggest secrets and fears. Hinton's other Broadway starring roles include '' Dancin''', ''Dreamgirls'', '' Sophisticated Ladies'' for which he won his first

, ''Chicago'' (Billy Flynn), and ''Ragtime'' (Coalhouse Walker Jr.), which garnered rave reviews from the Chicago press and earned him an Ira Aldridge Award. His role in '' The Tap Dance Kid'' also earned Hinton a second Tony Award, the NAACP Award and the Fred Astaire Award, and ''

Miss Saigon ''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...

'' for which he won his third Tony Award. Hinton's long list of television credits include: ''Shine,'' his one-man show presented at the HBO Aspen Comedy Arts Festival; The Kennedy Center's 25th Anniversary; ''These Old Broads,'' co-starring Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins, Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor; and ABC/Disney's ''Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story'' where Hinton served as a choreographer and co-star playing Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson. As a choreographer, Hinton's work has been seen on the musical episode of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', " Once More, with Feeling", ''These Old Broads'', ''Foreign Student'' (with Charles Dutton), The Golden Globe Awards, ''Dance in America''; the sitcoms ''Fired Up'', ''Sister Sister'', ''The Trouble with Normal'', and ''The Boys''. Hinton has choreographed promos for Warner Brothers, commercials for Coca-Cola, Chicago The Millie and New York Top Appliances. He served as Associate Choreographer on the 65th and 66th Annual Academy Awards with Debbie Allen. Off-Broadway Hinton has served as co-director and choreographer for '' Evil Dead The Musical''. Having finished choreographing the movie musical '' Idlewild'', he joined with Wynton Marsalis for ''The Buddy Bolden Story'', a feature film about the untold story of the man who created jazz in America. He then directed the stage musical ''Respect,'' a musical journey of women from the 1900s – 2007. Hinton's most recent creation, a dance form called Swop that combines swing and hip-hop, was performed on the highly rated ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the form ...

'' in 2006. In 2014, Hinton starred in the off-Broadway production ''Cindy: The Musical''.

Music

In addition to his prolific dancing career, Battle briefly drifted into singing in the mid-1980s. His song "Think We're Gonna Make It" was featured on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

to the 1986 movie '' Playing for Keeps'', and he released his lone solo album, ''Untapped'', that same year.Hinton Battle- Untapped LP (1986) @Discogs.com
Retrieved February 2, 2013.

References

External links

* * * *
Hinton Battle Theatre Laboratory
''Playbill'' interview, July 2006 * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080624222326/http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/interactive/video/index.html#b#b TonyAwards.com Interview with Hinton Battle {{DEFAULTSORT:Battle, Hinton 1956 births Living people 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American singers African-American choreographers African-American male actors African-American male dancers African-American male singers American choreographers American male dancers American male film actors American male musical theatre actors American male singers American male stage actors American male television actors American tap dancers Dance teachers German emigrants to the United States Male actors from New York City Male actors from Washington, D.C. People from Kusel (district) Singers from New York City Singers from Washington, D.C. Tony Award winners