Maurice Hines, a high-wattage song-and-dance man who rose to stardom as a child in a tap-dancing act with his brother, Gregory, then performed on and off Broadway, including in shows he directed and choreographed, died on Friday in Englewood, N.J. He was 80.
His death, at the Actors Fund Home, was confirmed by his cousin Richard Nurse. No specific cause was given.
The Hines brothers inherited a tap-dance tradition on the wane and, decades later, had a lot to do with bringing it back into the public consciousness. They started dance classes in Harlem when Maurice was 5 and Gregory was 3. After two years, they came under the tutelage of the great tap teacher and choreographer Henry LeTang, who made them into an act modeled after the high-flying Nicholas Brothers.
They spent many days watching show after show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, soaking up the styles of tap dancers like Teddy Hale, Bunny Briggs and the duo Coles and Atkins, sometimes getting lessons from them in the alley out back. As the Hines Kids, they performed at the Apollo, too, and at Catskills resorts, Las Vegas casinos, Miami nightclubs and theaters in Europe, as well as in the 1954 Broadway show “The Girl in Pink Tights.”
Since tap dancing was going out of fashion, the Hines brothers folded more and more comedy and singing into their act, inspired by Sammy Davis Jr., a role model with whom they performed. Their father, a drummer, later joined them, and as Hines, Hines and Dad, they toured the country, appeared often on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and, in 1968, recorded an album, “Pandemonium!”
The brothers had distinct styles. Gregory gravitated toward the loose but hard-swinging improvisational mode of hoofers like John Bubbles, while Maurice drew more broadly from ballet and jazz dance, embellishing his close-to-the-floor footwork with florid arm gestures like those of his hero, Fayard Nicholas, while throwing in high kicks and spins.
Their approach to the audience differed, too. Gregory “was so laid back, so effortless,” Maurice told The New York Times in 2016, “and he would always say that he never had to worry about the audience when we performed together because I would get them. Because I was relentless. That’s how we worked so well together.”
“Maurice was always in charge,” Mr. Nurse said in the 2019 documentary “Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back.” In the act, Gregory was often the butt of the jokes — “the lovable idiot,” his father called him — and in 1973, Gregory quit, moving to Southern California and becoming a kind of hippie who played in a jazz-rock band.
At first, Maurice was at loose ends without his brother, but he was soon cast in a production of “Guys and Dolls,” and he coaxed Gregory back to New York with the promise of work. It was he and Mr. LeTang who got Gregory hired to join Maurice in “Eubie!,” a 1978 Broadway revue based on the songs of the early jazz composer Eubie Blake. They were a brother act again, doing joint interviews and appearing together on “Sesame Street.” But it was Gregory, not Maurice, who was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the show.
And it was Gregory who became a star in Hollywood movies and again on Broadway in the 1984 Duke Ellington revue “Sophisticated Ladies.” When Gregory toured the show to Los Angeles, Maurice took over Gregory’s role in New York. “Gregory said I would make the show run longer, and I did,” Maurice recalled in an interview.
With Mercedes Ellington, a granddaughter of Duke, Mr. Hines created Balletap USA, a company that danced not just to jazz but also to contemporary music, like that of Michael Jackson. But he soon abandoned the company for the chance to appear with his brother in a 1984 film, Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club.”
In the film, set in and around the famous Harlem nightclub of the same name in the 1920s, the Hines brothers play a brother act much like themselves. Their fraternal affection and tension inform scenes that were largely improvised, as they reprise Hines Brothers routines, feud when Gregory’s character becomes a star soloist and eventually reconcile onstage. Offstage and off camera, they were soon feuding again, not speaking to each other for a decade for reasons they never publicly revealed.
In 1986, Maurice created, directed, choreographed and starred in a Broadway show, “Uptown … It’s Hot,” a rare achievement for a Black artist. His performance, which surveyed several decades of Black popular music, earned him a Tony nomination as best actor in a musical, but the show closed within a few weeks.
In 1994, Maurice took over for his brother again, this time in a touring production of the innovative Broadway musical “Jelly’s Last Jam,” for which Gregory had won a Tony Award for his performance as the jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton. (In his acceptance speech, Gregory thanked everyone in his family but left out his brother.)
Filling the role meant going toe to toe with the teenager who played the young Morton: Savion Glover, who would soon be considered Gregory’s successor as the king of tap. Once, during a challenge-dance exchange between the older and younger Mortons, Maurice, then in his 40s, did a flip into a split — “and Savion knelt down before me,” Mr. Hines said in an interview.
Mr. Hines created more touring shows, such as “Harlem Suite,” but Broadway success eluded him. “Hot Feet,” a 2006 Broadway revue, set to music by Earth, Wind and Fire, that he conceived, directed and choreographed, closed within a few months.
In his final show, the critically acclaimed “Tappin’ Thru Life,” which toured from 2010 through 2019, he sang, danced and told stories — mainly about his brother, who died of cancer at 57 in 2003.
Maurice Robert Hines Jr. was born on Dec. 14, 1943, in Manhattan. His father worked various jobs, including as a salesman, a bouncer and a semiprofessional baseball player, before becoming a musician and joining his sons’ act. His mother, Alma (Lawless) Hines, was a waitress at the Audubon Ballroom and helped manage her sons’ careers. The family soon moved from Harlem to Brooklyn, and the brothers, while pursuing their career, attended schools for professional children.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Hines joined the jazz dance teacher Frank Hatchett in running the Hines-Hatchett dance studio in Manhattan (now Broadway Dance Center).
Later that decade, he moved to Los Angeles, where, with Silas Davis, his partner at the time, he adopted and raised a daughter, Cheryl Davis. She is his only immediate survivor.
Mr. Hines was known for speaking his mind. He liked to tell a story about appearing on Regis Philbin’s TV show, refusing to dance, and then, after Mr. Philbin danced instead, informing him, “Your charisma doesn’t extend to your feet.”
In interviews, Mr. Hines often complained about New York theater critics, the economics of Broadway and prejudice against Black artists. In his final years, though, he spoke mostly about a glorious past and about missing his brother.