   Mr. Hines began dancing professionally as a young child but
went on to become an unusually successful crossover actor in
theater, film and television. He won a Tony Award as best actor
in a musical in 1992 for his portrayal of Jelly Roll Morton, the
pioneering jazz composer, his fourth Tony nomination as a
performer, and he was host, with Bernadette Peters, for the Tony
Award ceremony last year. He appeared in major films, including
Francis Ford Coppola's "Cotton Club," and "White Nights," with
Mikhail Baryshnikov, in which Mr. Hines played an American
defector to the Soviet Union. He had his own sitcom, "The
Gregory Hines Show," on CBS in 1997 and played recurring
characters on "Will & Grace" on NBC and "Lost at Home" on ABC.
"Anyone who has watched his superb virtuosity over the years
would notice how the dancer's weight-shifting style is now
ornamented with a jaunty rhythmic filigree," Anna Kisselgoff,
dance critic of The New York Times , wrote of Mr. Hines's guest
performance in 1995 in a benefit for