Robert Joseph Banas (September 22, 1933 – July 29, 2024) was an American dancer and actor who worked in films such as West Side Story (1961), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) and Always (1989).

I just couldn’t sit still when I’d hear those big bands: Tommy Dorsey, Ray Anthony, Count Basie, Les Brown and Stan Kenton.

I had the music in me and had to move or explode.”[1] Natalie Wood was his dancing partner in the Michael Panaieff Children’s’ Ballet Company, to which he received a scholarship and in which Jill St. John and Stefanie Powers were members.

He kissed Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love[citation needed] and made numerous television appearances, including an episode of Get Smart.

[2] A dance he choreographed for the Shirley Ellis song "The Nitty Gritty" and performed (with five other dancers) on The Judy Garland Show in 1964 drew him renewed attention on YouTube in the 2010s, where copies of it had been viewed more than 19 million times by November 2024.