Gregory Hines, the Tony Award-winning tap-dancing actor who starred on Broadway as well as in many films, including The Cotton Club, has died at the age of 57, his publicist said on Sunday. Hines, considered one of the top dancers of his generation, died in Los Angeles of cancer, said Allen Eichhorn, a spokesman for Hines.

The native New Yorker, who won a 1992 Tony for the musical Jelly?s Last Jam, first found fame performing jazz tap with his brother Maurice, working together in the musical revue Eubie! in 1978 and in Sophisticated Ladies.

Born on February 14, 1946, in New York City, Hines had said his mother steered her sons toward tap dancing as a way to escape the ghetto. By the time he was five, Hine was already performing, and the two brothers danced at the famed Apollo theater for two weeks when he was just six. In his teens, the brothers also performed with their father, Maurice Sr., who played drums. Later he earned Tony nominations on Broadway in Eubie!, Comin? Uptown and Sophisticated Ladies. On television, he had his own sitcom in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show, and a recurring role on Will and Grace. This spring, he appeared in the spring television series Lost at Home.Hines is survived by his fiance, Negrita Jayde, his daughter, Daria, his son, Zach, his stepdaughter, Jessica Koslow and his grandson, Lucian, Eichhorn said. Hines had been married twice.

He is also survived by his older brother Maurice and father Maurice, Sr. A private funeral will be held in Los Angeles this week.