English ballet dancers

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 45. Chapters: Hermione Darnborough, Alicia Markova, Margot Fonteyn, Jamie Bell, Wendy Toye, Darcey Bussell, Gillian Lynne, Keith McMillan, Deborah Bull, Leon Cooke, Viviana Durante, Wayne Sleep, Liam Mower, Frederick Ashton, Jeremy Sheffield, Antony Tudor, Simone Clarke, Maina Gielgud, Joshua Fedrick, Natasha Oughtred, Christopher Wheeldon, Celia Franca, Ben Stevenson, Rachel De Thame, Vanessa Hooper, Matthew Koon, Peter Darrell, Anthony Dowell, Christopher Gable, Oliver Taylor, Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest, Kevin O'Hare, Stanley Williams, George Maguire, Miyako Yoshida, Marguerite Porter, Beryl Goldwyn, James Lomas, Dominic North, David Blair, Valda Setterfield, Anton Dolin, David Gayle, Doreen Wells, Adam Cooper, Julia Farron, Lydia Sokolova, John Gilpin, Christopher Hampson, Jonathan Ollivier, Edward Watson, Michael Somes, David Bintley, Xander Parish, Sarah Wildor, Rupert Pennefather, Frederic Franklin, Hamoir, Georgina Parkinson, Phyllis Bedells, Erina Takahashi, Alastair Marriott, Stanley Holden, Anya Linden, Lauren Cuthbertson, Phyllida Crowley Smith, Gary Avis, Sally Gilpin, Antoinette Sibley, Daniel Jones. Excerpt: Hermione Maria Louise Darnborough (1915-29 October 2010), later Hermione Mathieson, was an English principal ballerina who made her name at Sadler's Wells in the 1930s. She retired at a young age after marrying the distinguished conductor and composer Muir Mathieson (1911-75). Hermione Darnborough came from a wealthy and well-connected family who lived in Weybridge, Surrey. On the side of her "glamorous and determined" mother, Frances, she was a cousin of the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Portland. Her American father, Bill (or Billy) Darnborough (1869-1958), a former minor league baseball player and chop house owner who amassed a small fortune at roulette in the early years of the twentieth century, has been described as "the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, though ... ike many an habitual gambler, he would generally lose his winnings at the next turn of the wheel, and it took all his wife's pleading to persuade him to stop". Her brother was the film producer Antony Darnborough (1913-2000), whose sister-in-law, journalist Drusilla Beyfus, married theatre critic Milton Shulman and was mother of Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue since 1992, and Nicola Shulman, later Marchioness of Normanby. In 1929, at the age of 14, Darnborough auditioned for the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev during the final season that the highly influential Ballets Russes performed in London. He was evidently impressed and asked to see her again in three years time, but nothing came of this as he died a few weeks later in Venice. From an early age, Darnborough took part in a range of productions, including charity matinées and Christmas pantomimes. Among the latter were Beauty and the Beast (1928) and Puss in Boots (1929) at the Lyceum Theatre, London. Darnborough's teacher was Miss Euphan MacLaren, whose stage school in Kensington was often called upon when young people were required for films. In 1930, she appeared in On with the Dance!, a short film for Pathé's cinemagazin