Michael Smuin was a Montana-born dancer and choreographer who became famous for mixing classical ballet with Broadway-style showmanship. [montanakids](https://montanakids.com/cool_stories/famous_montanans/smuin.htm) Michael Smuin was born in Missoula, Montana, on October 13, 1938, and grew up taking tap lessons before falling in love with ballet after seeing a touring company at the University of Montana. As a teenager he moved away to study dance, later becoming a principal dancer with both San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre and then co-artistic director of San Francisco Ballet in the 1970s and 1980s. Smuin created dances for big ballet companies, choreographed Broadway shows like Anything Goes and Sophisticated Ladies, and worked on movies such as The Cotton Club and Bram Stoker's Dracula. In 1994 he started his own Smuin Ballet in San Francisco, where he made energetic ballets to music by composers and popular artists, and he continued creating and teaching until he died on April 23, 2007, after collapsing during a company class.