LeRoy Jerome Prinz (July 14, 1895 – September 15,1983) was a choreographer, director and producer, who was involved in the production of dozens of motion  pictures, mainly for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, from 1929 through 1958. He also choreographed Broadway musicals. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction in the 1930’s, and won the Golden Globe in 1958.

Among the films whose dances he choreographed were Show Boat (1936), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), and South Pacific (1958).

Born in St. Joseph, his grandfather was a dancing master, and his father taught ballroom dancing etiquette to young men and women at Prinz’s Academy in St. Joseph.

After the outbreak of WW l, he served in the French Aviation Corps and Captain Eddie Rickenbacker’s 94th Aero Squadron. Prinz told journalists that he had crashed 14 -18 planes, was nicknamed “America’s German Ace” and as a result, he was also called “Crash Ace Prinz.”

Prinz returned to the U.S. in 1919 and studied theater at Northwestern University. After graduation he returned to France and worked as a choreographer in Paris.

Prinz claimed that he produced stage shows for Al Capone and that Capone hired him to book entertainment and stage floor shows at eighteen Chicago night clubs. Prinz left Chicago and worked as a dance director in New York, Florida, Mexico and Cuba.

Though mainly known for his work as a dance director on big budget musicals, he directed a number of short films, one of which, A Boy and His Dog (1946), won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Later in life he owned his own production company, was vice president of an advertising agency, and produced benefit programs in Hollywood. He was friends with Ronald Reagan and he choreographed the entertainment at the 1976 Republican convention and at several presidential inaugurations.