Well-deserving of his reputation as a "women's director" for tackling many feminine--and feminist--issues on screen, Herbert Ross began his career as a dancer and started choreographing American Ballet Theatre productions and Broadway shows in the early 1950s. In 1954, he graduated to staging Broadway musical sequences with "House of Flowers" and choreographed his first film "Carmen Jones". Ross' years in ballet accustomed him to perceiving women as independent and often more than men's equals, and bringing his sensibilities to the screen, he coaxed fine performances out of stars like Barbra
