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Emile Ardolino

Emmy-winning TV producer-director and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker (for his profile on ballet dancer-teacher Jacques d'Amboise, "He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'" 1983). After a distinguished career in television as director and producer of PBS' "Dance in America" and "Live From Lincoln Center" cultural series and as director of Joseph Papp productions for TV, Ardolino scored a huge hit with his first fiction feature, the dance-driven teen romance, "Dirty Dancing" (1987). After this sweaty charmer, Ardolino helmed the lackadaisically fantastic "Chances Are" (1988) and the happy-face sequel "Three Men and A Little Lady" (1990). He did even better in the box-office stakes with the surprise hit "Sister Act" (1992) which starred Whoopi Goldberg as woman on the lam posing as a singing nun. This assured goofy comedy of transformation grossed $200 million. His last feature was a return to his preoccupation, dance on film: "George Balanchine's The Nutcracker" (1993) starring Macaulay Culkin. Ardolino's final TV assignment was directing "Gypsy" (CBS, 1993) starring Bette Midler in an adaptation of the Sondheim/Styne/Laurents musical. This special was broadcast after the director's death.