Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Dame Ninette DE VALOIS DBE (1898-2001)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Ninette de Valois, ballet teacher, choreographer and former dancer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the London home of choreographer Frederick Ashton, having been led to believe she was meeting friends, before being taken to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where the programme was then recorded.
Ninette, who was born in County Wicklow, Ireland, trained as a dancer after moving to England and performed in pantomime, variety and revue before dancing professionally with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the 1920s. In 1926, she opened her own ballet school and later worked as a choreographer for the Festival Theatre in Cambridge and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
In 1931, she founded the Vic-Wells Ballet, based at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, which would become The Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies of the world. In addition, she established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company, which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
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Anna Meadmore, curator of The Royal Ballet's White Lodge Museum, discusses Ninette de Valois and her appearance on This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in April 2013
Photographs of Ninette de Valois This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Ninette de Valois's big red book
Series 9 subjects
Stratford Johns | Alice Stern | Robert Boothby | Bessie Love | Joan Stanton | Harry Worth | John Dodd | Ralph Reader