![]() “I was visualizing through the lens,” Lythgoe recalls. While choreographing new numbers, he jotted down camera angles, too. “The door opened and I stepped through it, which has happened my entire career,” he says. That proved too much for the lead choreographer. As on “So You Think You Can Dance” decades later, hoofers had to learn new routines weekly. Two years later, when the show hired a new choreographer, Lythgoe was asked to assist. ![]() I got into ‘The Young Generation’ on the BBC in 1968.” “I always wanted to be a singing and dancing West End star. “Choreography wasn’t really a decision,” he says. As with so much of his career, there was no grand plan. Yet, as Lythgoe notes, he switched early to choreography. About a year later, we were working on ‘Pop Idol.’ He was absolutely fearless.”īy the time they met, Lythgoe had been working in television for decades. “At the last moment, I backed out because I didn’t want to be a judge on TV shows,” Cowell recalls. ![]() A reality series following the formation of a modern pop-music group, it was short-lived in the U.K., but was a part of a bigger franchise that spanned countries from New Zealand to Ukraine and even got a U.S. version of “ Popstars,” which aired on ITV in 2001. “That is very funny typical Nigel,” he says.Ĭowell and Lythgoe met more than 20 years ago when Lythgoe wanted Cowell to be a judge on the U.K. “They asked me where I would like my star,” Lythgoe says. That quick wit is evident when discussing this latest honor. Independently, Lythgoe’s friends all mention his boundless energy, advocacy for dance and humor. He will have a heart attack, and he’s back up and away he goes.” “Who has neck surgery and two days later gets on a jet to go on an audition?” asks “So You Think You Can Dance” judge Mary Murphy. He continues to push his body because, as any former dancer knows, there’s no such thing as a former dancer. “There is a kinship between boxing and dancing, and a lot of it has to do with control of your body,” he says.Īnd that Lythgoe has. Lythgoe understands the visceral connection between boxers and dancers. ![]() In this case, “we are going to take young fighters who believe they can fight, train them up, see the training, interview them - I have got some celebrities as well as champions - and then put them in the ring,” he explains. The format of “So You Think You Can Fight” will be familiar to fans of his shows. (The highly anticipated return of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” is still to be determined the last season wrapped up with a live finale in September 2019, almost two years ago.) Lythgoe spent the lockdown working on his golf game, pitching a show about the birth of R&B and readying a new series, “So You Think You Can Fight” for streamer Triller. “It all worked out fine, otherwise, I would not be talking with you,” he says, 15 months later. Then, he was preparing to have a pacemaker replaced. ![]() Lythgoe reflected on his life over the course of two lengthy interviews - the first, on the eve of Valentine’s Day 2020, when COVID was making news but not yet declared a pandemic. So were Lythgoe’s pals, he adds, once “we all figured out the best-looking girls were at dance school.” Billy’s father was embarrassed by his ballet-loving son Lythgoe’s was proud. Lythgoe, though, was luckier than that character. “I would have much preferred a pair of tap shoes or ballet shoes.”Ĭomparisons are inevitable between Lythgoe and “Billy Elliot,” the movie and stage musical about a dockworker’s son who wants to become a dancer. “I guess I am going to get a little television on my star,” he says. ![]()
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