Second thoughts and then third thoughts shaped Michael Kidd's life and brought him fame and fortune at the top of his eventual profession as a Broadway and Hollywood choreographer. Born Milton Greenwald in Manhattan and growing up in Brooklyn, son of an immigrant barber from Russia, his intention had been to become a chemical engineer and he entered City College of New York to study for this. But he had already attended a dance performance and was attracted, to the point of starting dance lessons. The vitality he had developed in sports and street games took him quickly forward and he settled on a career in dance.

By 1937 he had won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet and made his Broadway debut in the chorus of The Eternal Road, produced by Max Reinhardt; that's when he took his stage name. The following year he joined Lincoln Kirstein's company Ballet Caravan and had his first leading role, the title part in Eugene Loring's Billy the Kid. At that time he gave 1919 as the year of his birth, suggesting precocious success, but his nephew has now stated that Kidd was in fact four years older, making him actually a late starter.

A decade dancing in classical ballet brought real achievements. After a spell as soloist and assistant director in Loring's troupe Dance Players, Kidd in 1942 joined Ballet Theatre, where Léonide Massine, after first using him for small parts in La Boutique fantasque and The Three-cornered Hat, gave him the lead in Mam'zelle Angot.

Antony Tudor created a role for him in Dim Lustre and then, uniquely, gave him in quick succession both leading parts in Pillar of Fire, as the kindly friend, then the sexy neighbour. David Lichine's Graduation Ball brought him another lead as the junior cadet, and when Ballet Theatre played its first London season at Covent Garden in 1946 Kidd took the title role in Petrushka, revealed a gift for comedy in Agnes de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil, and went as a replacement into the season's biggest success, employing notable characterisation and forceful acrobatic virtuosity as one of the three sailors in Jerome Robbins's Fancy Free.

Only the previous year Kidd had choreographed his own first ballet, On Stage, a sentimental but amusing incident of backstage life, in which he played a stagehand helping out an ambitious but nervous aspirant dancer — the celebrated Alicia Alonso had just taken over that part. On Stage also was much admired in London, and likewise in New York, where it brought Kidd the invitation to create his first dances for Broadway, for Finian's Rainbow — which he did so well in 1947 that he won a Tony Award and never went back to classical ballet.

That success was repeated in the extravagantly admired Guys and Dolls, after which he made his first film ballets: Where's Charley? starring Ray Bolger and then, at Fred Astaire's request, The Band Wagon, making splendid duets for Astaire and Cyd Charisse. In 1954 Kidd worked almost simultaneously on two further hits. For Can-Can, another of his five Tony award-winning Broadway shows, Kidd featured the little-known Gwen Verdon, treating her like a star and turning her into one. Meanwhile, the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (which Kidd had nearly turned down) became one of his — and his fans' — favourites, with vivid dances telling its tale of woodsmen who kidnap neighbouring girls, then win their love.

Kidd's occasional directing instead of, or as well as, dance-making proved less successful. He always wanted real-life characters and situations for his creations. He pushed his dancers hard but kept their faith by being able to demonstrate what he wanted. His biggest opportunities came in the 1940s and 1950s but he went on taking whatever work came and added television to his outlets. His last big film dances were in Hello Dolly in 1969 with Barbra Streisand. Other stars he had worked with included Danny Kaye (a comic Russian ballet sequence in Knock on Wood), Julie Andrews in Star, Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando in the film version of Guys and Dolls. More recently he added Bernadette Peters and Janet Jackson.

When Frank Sinatra became unavailable for It's Always Fair Weather, directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen (conceived as revisiting the characters of On the Town ten years later), Kidd took on the role and scored in it, notably in a trio with Kelly and Dan Dailey where they dance through the streets with dustbin lids on their feet. Besides his dancing skills, Kidd was a handsome man with an an expressive face. Another memorable role for him on screen came as the stager of a small-town beauty pageant in Smile.

His lifelong work in films was recognised by the award of an honorary Oscar in 1997, and his contributions to stage and screen are remembered with warmth.

Kidd married twice; both wives were former dancers. With Mary Heater (married 1940) he had two daughters; after divorce, he married Shelagh Hackett, with whom he had a son and daughter.

Michael Kidd, dancer and choreographer, was born on August 12, 1915. He died on December 23, 2007, aged 92