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 Streisand, Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, Sally Field and Julia Roberts. He arguably has also been the foremost promoter of films with dance themes in recent years, boasting "The Turning Point" (1977), "Nijinsky" (1980), "Pennies from Heaven" (1981), "Footloose" (1984) and "Dancers" (1987), among his credits.

Ross made his feature directing debut with "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (1969), a musical remake of the 1939 classic, and then directed Streisand in her first non-singing role in "The Owl and the Pussycat" (1970, also his first movie as producer). He hit his stride in the 70s with the delirious Woody Allen vehicle "Play It Again Sam" (1972), served the wit of the Anthony Perkins-Stephen Sondheim script for the mystery "The Last of Sheila" (1973) and the Sherlock Holmes pastiche "The Seven Per-Cent Solution" (1976), culminating in a string of five film (and two stage) collaborations with writer Neil Simon, beginning with the screen adaptation of "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), which starred George Burns and Walter Matthau. Ross returned to his dancing roots with an acclaimed study of the ballet world written by Arthur Laurents, "The Turning Point", one of five movies he co-produced with his wife Nora Kaye, a former prima ballerina who died of cancer in 1987. The critical and box-office success of "Steel Magnolias" (1989) and "Boys on the Side" (1995) only enhanced his image as a director of great emotional depth in tune with his feminine side.