Patti LuPone Remembers Her Brother as a 'Dancer Unparalleled' Following His Passing

Patti LuPone is remembering her late brother Robert LuPone, who recently passed away, following a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer. In a new interview with Page Six, LuPone reflects on her members with her brother.

"My brother Bobby was a dancer unparalleled," Patti remembers. "And it all started when he saw me in a dance recital wearing a hula skirt. I was 4, he was 7."

Patti recalls a "life-sized picture" of Robert on display in the photo gallery at The Juilliard School, where both attended.

"A few years later, as a student in the theater division, I would walk by it proudly as well as in awe," the "Evita" star reminisced.

Read the original story on Page Six.

Robert's first professional job was in 1966, in the ensemble of the Westbury Music Fair's production of The Pajama Game starring Liza Minnelli. He made his Broadway debut in the 1968 production of Noel Coward's Sweet Potato, and subsequently appeared in Minnie's Boys, The Rothschilds, and The Magic Show.

After over ten years of booking musicals as a dancer and performing through various dance injuries - one of which left him paralyzed for 11 days - he became a member of The Actors Studio to hone his skills as a legitimate actor. His goal was to be involved with "issue-oriented, substantial work." Never truly connecting with the philosophy at the studio, he left after having a fight with a member who said, "Well if you don't like it, go start your own theater." Sure enough, that's what he did. A few years later, Bob was teaching an acting class at New York University where one of his students was Bernie Telsey. Together they would form Manhattan Class Company-known today as MCC Theater.

While serving as a co-artistic director of MCC Theater, Bob continued acting, mostly on stage, but also on television. Some notable acting credits include Broadway productions of A View from the Bridge, True West, and A Thousand Clowns, and the Chicago premiere of Sam Shepard's The Tooth of Crime for which he won a Joseph Jefferson Award. Select TV credits include "The Sopranos", "Sex & the City", "All My Children" (for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination), and "Guiding Light".

Bob returned to his role as an educator, supporting the artistic development of a new generation of actors, when he began serving as the Director of the MFA Drama Program at the New School for Drama from 2005 through 2011. He also served as President of the Board of Directors of A.R.T / New York.

Read Robert LuPone's full obituary here.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride