Famed choreographer Bob Fosse's fourth film as a director, the semi-autobiographical All That Jazz, (1979) was inspired by his drug use, womanizing and near-fatal heart attack, as well as the Hilma Wolitzer novel about death, Ending. The screenplay was cowritten with Robert Alan Aurthur, who died of lung cancer during the project. The deal originally included Richard Dreyfuss as Joe Gideon before the project moved from Paramount to Columbia, who were concerned that the story was too "self-indulgent" on Fosse's part.
Critics recognized where the film intersected with Fosse's life with the character of Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer) resembling his ex-wife Gwen Verdon and the Kate Jagger character based, by her own admission, on his real-life girlfriend, Ann Reinking, who played the part but had ended the relationship before production started. The part was not given to her - she had to audition. Dreyfuss left the project due to exhaustion and was replaced with Dreyfuss' Jaws (1975) co-star, Roy Scheider. He would later say that Scheider was a better fit for the role.
All That Jazz was shot on location at various spots in New York City, the Astoria Studios in Queens, New York and a real apartment used for Gideon's flat. Only weeks away from completion, Columbia balked at paying an estimated $500,000 for the musical finale, since the budget had ballooned. Alan Ladd, Jr., at Twentieth Century-Fox agreed to finance the film for $5 million and acquired distribution rights and a profit-sharing agreement with Columbia.
In the end, All That Jazz received good reviews, four Academy Awards for Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing and Music and five nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Scheider, Directing, Cinematography and Screenplay.
