Alejandro Bernardo Quiroga,[1] better known as Alex Romero (August 20, 1913 – September 8, 2007) was an American dancer and choreographer who was noted for directing Elvis Presley's dancing in the movie Jailhouse Rock and for working with noted dancers and choreographers at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) during the 1940s and 1950s.[2][3]
In addition to choreographing Jailhouse Rock, Romero worked with performers and choreographers who included Gene Kelly, Hermes Pan, Stanley Donen, Fred Astaire, and Michael Kidd in films that included On the Town and An American in Paris, in which he also performed during ballet sequences. He also staged dances as in the films Easter Parade, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Kiss Me Kate and television shows.[2][3]
Romero's parents were General don Miguel Quiroga Cantu and Soledad Chapa Quiroga, who had 22 sons and a daughter. His father, a general in the Mexican Army, was a confidante of Mexico's president Victoriano Huerta, and was a member of Mexico's political elite. Romero's mother fled across the border after her husband was killed in the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican Revolution. Soledad Quiroga fled first to Laredo, Texas and then to San Antonio, where Alejandro was born on August 20, 1913. Six of Romero's siblings eventually joined the family in San Antonio. Alejandro was known as Alex from an early age.[4]
The family moved in 1921 to Los Angeles, where his older brother Carlos was working as a dancer in silent films. Carlos and his siblings began a Spanish dance act, "The Romeros", and Alex joined them in 1929.[5] Their dance act played on vaudeville circuits. The act went overseas in the 1930s and played at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. In one 1938 incident in Poland, Romero was almost shot by a German officer who believed him to be Jewish.[6]
In 1941, after working in a print shop, Romero registered with Central Casting and was hired as a dancer by Warner Brothers' dance director LeRoy Prinz. He also appeared in the 1943 film The Heat's On, which starred Mae West, and Follow the Boys a 1944 film with George Raft and Vera Zorina.[7]
In 1944, Romero was recruited by Jack Cole to join the dance department that he had just established at Columbia Pictures. He and the studio dance troupe performed in a number of Columbia films, including Eadie Was a Lady and The Thrill of Brazil, both with Ann Miller. In 1947, during a technicians' strike Cole and his dancers left Columbia to create a nightclub act.[8]