Rob Marshall was born on October 17, 1960 in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He is an American theater and film director, and choreographer.

Taking his cue from such profusely talented dancer/choreographer-turned-directors as Bob Fosse, former Broadway hoofer Rob Marshall made a scintillating leap into film with his directorial debut Chicago (2002).

He earned his first credit as a Broadway choreographer with the musical version of +Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993. Working steadily in the theater throughout the 1990s, Marshall subsequently choreographed the Broadway revival of +Damn Yankees, and took on double duties as choreographer and director of +Little Me, +Company, +Victor/Victoria, and the Los Angeles stage revival of Fosse's 1975 musical +Chicago before it moved to New York in 1996. Marshall learned to choreograph for motion pictures when executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron hired him to create the dances for the TV musical version of Cinderella (1997). Impressed with his work, Zadan and Meron hired him to direct and choreograph the TV adaptation of Annie (1999), which went on to become the most popular TV movie of 1999.

Marshall topped off his Broadway career when he choreographed and co-directed with Sam Mendes the wildly successful 1998 revival of +Cabaret. With his sterling Broadway pedigree as well as his TV experience, Marshall was called by Miramax in 2000 to discuss a film version of Rent. Knowing that Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein had long desired to make a movie of -Chicago, and that such big names as Madonna, Goldie Hawn, and Nicholas Hytner had already come and gone from the project, Marshall instead pitched Weinstein his idea for how to make Chicago's vaudeville stage structure work for film. With Weinstein's blessing, Marshall tapped screenwriter Bill Condon to transform John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Fosse's saucy musical numbers into stylized, stage-bound figments of murderess and wannabe starlet Roxie Hart's imagination. Over a rigorous rehearsal period, Marshall and his team made sure that the cast, including neophyte chorine Renee Zellweger and musical theater veterans Richard Gere and Catherine Zeta-Jones, could do all of their own singing and dancing onscreen. As his Cabaret predecessor, Fosse, had when adapting that show into an Oscar-winning film, Marshall re-choreographed Chicago for the screen as well, creating dances that evoked the sinuous spirit of Fosse's sexy 1975 choreography without slavishly copying it.

Credits by Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Director

• Nine (2008) 
• Tony Bennett: An American Classic (2006) (TV)
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
• Chicago (2002)
• The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts (2001) (TV)
• Annie (1999) (TV)

Awards

• Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Musical Variety "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" 2007
• Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures "Chicago" 2002
• National Board of Review Award Best Directorial Debut "Chicago" 2002
• American Choreography Award Outstanding Achievement in Television - Variety or Special "Annie" 2000
• Dora Mavor Moore Award Outstanding Choreography in a Play or Musical "Cabaret" 2000
• Emmy Outstanding Choreography "Annie" 1999