[1]In newspaper profiles, he claimed that after running away from boarding school at the age of 15, he "hopped a freight" and came to New York City, where, in 1911, he began a blackface song and dance act, named Prinz and Buck, with a young black man he met along the way.

[3] After the outbreak of World War I, he returned to France, trained as a pilot, and served in the French aviation corps and Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's 94th Aero Squadron.

[2] In an October 1918 article, war correspondent George Seldes described how Prinz was separated from his flight on his first venture into German territory, and returned home with minor injuries after a perilous journey.

[4] A November 1919 report in St. Louis Post-Dispatch states that Prinz was employed in the aeronautical portion of an American Legion show, also featuring actor William S. Hart, that was touring the area.

[8] In various newspaper profiles, Prinz claimed that he worked as a dancer at a bordello in Omaha, as an aviation instructor for the Mexican government, and that he ferried ammunition for the Nicaraguan rebel leader, Augusto César Sandino.

His employers included Earl Carroll, Broadway's Shubert family, Tex Guinan and Philadelphia bootlegger Boo Hoo Hoff.

According to Agnes de Mille's biographer, her uncle always deferred to the "reliable but pedestrian" Prinz, even after agreeing to his niece's flamboyant dances in advance.

His first major assignment at Warner Brothers was the George M. Cohan biographical movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), starring James Cagney in the title role.

He choreographed a "ballet in jive" sequence in the service musical Hollywood Canteen (1944), featuring Broadway dancer Joan McCracken.

[11][4] Prinz worked again with James Cagney, eight years after Yankee Doodle Dandy, on West Point Story, also starring Virginia Mayo and Doris Day.

[4] Later in life, he was owner of his own production company, vice president of an advertising agency, and a producer of benefit programs in Hollywood.

[4] He counted among his friends Ronald Reagan, whom he knew from their days working together at Warner Brothers, and he choreographed entertainment at the 1976 Republican National Convention and at several presidential inaugurations.

"[11] In a 1952 profile, Associated Press Hollywood columnist James Bacon stated that Prinz differed from what he described as "sissified" choreographers, that he was "a rough, tough guy, as some little giants of 5 foot 5 are.

"[2] As a choreographer at Warner Brothers, Prinz had a different approach from Busby Berkeley, whose choreography for early 1930s movies included elaborate production numbers that were photographed using imaginative camera angles, often from above.

[15] In his 1983 study of wartime Hollywood musicals, Allen L. Woll says that with the camera angles not being employed effectively, as they were by Berkeley, "the pedestrian quality of Prinz's dance numbers is painfully revealed.