Remembering Maurice Hines

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Maurice Hines, Broadway star and brother of fellow tap-dancing legend Gregory Hines, has died. He was 80.



Maurice died last Friday of natural causes at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, an assisted living facility where he lived in recent years, the home's executive director, Jordan Strohl, confirmed to PEOPLE.



Maurice was nominated for a Tony Award in 1986 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role in Uptown...It's Hot! Some of his other Broadway credits include 1981's Bring Back Birdie and, most recently, 2006's Hot Feet, which he choreographed. He made his Broadway debut in 1954's The Girl in Pink Tights.



The Harlem, New York, native first gained public attention while touring with his father, Maurice Sr., and his younger brother Gregory (who died of cancer in 2003) in a dance show called Hines, Hines & Dad. In 1963, the family performed together on The Ed Sullivan Show.


In 1984, Maurice and Gregory played feuding brothers Clay and Sandman Williams in the Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club, about the reknowned jazz club in Harlem.



Early in their careers, they performed together as the Hines Brother, but there were real-life tensions in their relationship. The 2019 documentary film Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back revealed that Gregory and Maurice had a falling-out and didn't talk for 10 years.



Hines co-directed and choreographed the national tour of the Louis Armstrong musical biography Satchmo, along with a production of Havana Night in Cuba.

Both are now resting in peace.