Category: Uncategorized
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In early March 1973 Moira Shearer left the comfort of her home at The Old Manse in Makerstoun, Scotland and travelled to the US to begin a gruelling 6-week lecture tour. She was 47 years old, had been married for 23 years and had 4 children. The theme of the lectures was “The History…
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(All credit for this post goes to Scott Bilotta, an American who researches the history of photography and collects materials related to this. In his collection he has an envelope containing three glass plate negatives that resulted from a photo shoot of Moira Shearer in New York in October 1949.) On October 4th, 1949,…
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The Old Vic presented a lavish and highly criticized production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Edinburgh Festival in late August and early September 1954. Robert Helpmann, the former Sadler’s Wells dancer portrayed Oberon and Moira Shearer played Titania in her first major dramatic role. The play ran for 2 weeks between August…
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Up until 1948 Moira Shearer was virtually unknown outside the British ballet world. But on July 22nd of that year the film “The Red Shoes” premiered at the Gaumont Theatre in the Haymarket in London. The film went out to general release in the U.K. in early September and soon after Moira Shearer became…
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Moira Shearer declined to write her autobiography. Probably at her publisher’s suggestion, later in life, she began to write one but after a few weeks gave up. She decided that she had no desire to reminisce on paper. Since then and since her death in 2006 there has been no attempt at a biography…
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In 1931 when Moira Shearer, who was then known as Moira King, was five years old she accompanied her parents to live in the small town of Ndola in Northern Rhodesia. Her father was a civil engineer and was working to help establish the copper industry there. The following year Shearer’s mother enrolled her…
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Moira Shearer’s dancing was often compared to that of her close contemporaries Beryl Grey and Violetta Elvin and most especially to that of Margot Fonteyn. Some critics talked of her dancing in “the shadow” of Fonteyn and, true as this might have been, it did not concern Shearer. She strove to emulate Fonteyn but…
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Moira Shearer’s career in cinema was closely related to that of Michael Powell. A majority of the films she made were directed by him and he knew well how to showcase her many talents. One of these was her natural colouring, her pale skin, her auburn hair and her dark grey-blue eyes. It was…
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In the 1948 film, The Red Shoes, the director Michael Powell sets out to take full advantage of two of Moira Shearer’s many talents, most specifically her brilliant dancing and her beauty. His goal was to create of her a fairytale princess. This is most obviously apparent in the scenes depicting the arrival…
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Moira Shearer, ballerina, had begun to see the writing on the wall as early as 1948. In 1949, when asked what she wanted to do after leaving the ballet she replied, “straight dramatic acting …. that’s why I’m taking drama lessons now, in my spare time – what there is of it”. This is…
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In 1957 Moira Shearer’s husband Ludovic Kennedy was a newscaster for the British TV network Independent Television News (ITN). Kennedy had been a long-standing supporter of the Conservative or Tory Party, then led by Anthony Eden. However, Kennedy became increasingly disenchanted with the Tories particularly over their inept handling of the “Suez Crisis” in…
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In 1954 the British impresario Donald Albery produced the play “I am a Camera” for London’s West End stage. It was based on John van Druten’s play that had been staged in New York in 1951 and that, in turn, was based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel about life in Berlin in the 1930s, titled…
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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger brought in Sir Thomas Beecham, the British conductor and impresario, to conduct the music for the ballet sequence that was the centrepiece of their 1948 film, The Red Shoes. The music was written by Brian Easedale who also served as conductor for the balance of the film. After…
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In 1937 an 18-year-old Michael Benthall, who was then an undergraduate at Oxford, went to see a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream staged by Tyrone Guthrie at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Vivien Leigh played the part of Titania and Robert Helpmann was Oberon. The production included music that Mendelssohn…
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Moira Shearer and Fred Ashton, one of the principal choreographers for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, had a long professional relationship that extended from 1943 to 1967. In that timeframe, he created several ballets that drew upon her extensive and remarkable ballet skills. Moira Shearer and Fred Ashton at Covent Garden in 1967. Photographer not…
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“Ballet makes unceasing and exhausting demands on its votives…..a dancer often spends the whole day in the theatre and is never free from rehearsals, the daily classes and special classes, photo calls and dress fittings”. Peter Craig Raymond, Ballet Today, December 1954. Moira Shearer leaves her parent’s flat in west London and heads off for…
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In 1987 BBC Northwest hired Gillian Lynne to choreograph and direct a ballet based on the life of the Salford-born painter L. S. Lowry. The ballet or, as Lynne preferred to call it, “dance drama”, was to be performed by the Northern Ballet, based in Manchester and directed by the former Royal Ballet dancer…
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During her tenure at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Moira Shearer was partnered by numerous male dancers. These included Robert Helpmann and Michael Somes. However, as they were primarily matched with the prima ballerina, Margot Fonteyn, Shearer, as the second cast, was usually partnered by other dancers. Chief among them were Alexis Rassine, David Paltenghi…
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In the late 30s Fred Ashton choreographed The Wedding Bouquet based on a play by Gertrude Stein with music by Lord Berners. The ballet was, in fact, the result of a collaboration between Ashton, Berners and Constant Lambert, musical director of the Vic-Wells Ballet. The plot of the ballet concerns a wedding reception…
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Symphonic Variations was the first ballet created after World War 2 by the choreographer, Frederick Aston. Its genesis was Cesar Franck’s concerto of the same name. Ashton had listened to the music a number of times during the war and decided to produce a ballet based on it. The dance critic, Stephen Williams,…
Moira Shearer 