CHAPTER 2

Ushering Choreography
For teen-age movie theater ushers in those days, posture and bearing were very important and every ushering move was elaborately choreographed.

We were put in spiffy uniforms and drilled to perfection. We were taught to always carry ourselves as if molded in a dignified, quasi-military posture. Each evening we marched in formation from our locker room up to the main floor and there stood at attention to be assigned to our posts by the Captain of the ushers. We were inspected from head to toe, taking off our white gloves to show that our nails were trimmed and clean and our shoes polished. We had to learn by heart the entire schedule in case anyone might ask when the main feature would begin, or end, and were drilled on this.

Stationed at the top of each aisle, we stood erect with shoulders back and feet splayed, watching the Captain, who stood at the main entrance and directed each group of people to whichever aisle had the available seats. We had to know exactly how many seats were empty in our aisle by periodically making a count. There was an entire language of hand signals to relay this information to the Captain.

When a patron approached your aisle there was an entire choreographed sequence that you performed: lunge forward on the right foot, grasp door handle and open it, again with right foot release the door stop so the door remained open, make a two step half turn to the right, raise the flashlight forward chest height, bring it into the chest simultaneously pointing it downwards and switch it on while saying ‘this way please’. Then perform an about face and proceed down the aisle with right arm holding the flashlight extended to the back. Patrons followed obediently. After all, they felt they were being escorted by palace guards and so behaved accordingly.

To find empty seats you stopped at the row, begging the pardon of the person sitting on the aisle seat and directed the newcomers in, telling which seat they should take. You thanked the standing person and then proceeded back to your station at the top of the aisle, ready to greet the next patron.

This training in posture, body carriage and proper manners was all good discipline for teen-agers and it all stayed through life. Along with my constant bike riding, it certainly went a long way in developing my legs for dancing. Sometimes, if stationed in a remote area of the theater, I would first check to see that no one was around and then practice a ballet position, a step or a pirouette.

The Captains of ushers acted like little Napoleons. One who was particularly officious was studying law. Many years later, in New York City, I happened to be summoned for jury duty and noticed the Judge of the particular murder case had the same name and demeanor. It could be none other than he. I think he recognized me and to be sure, asked what kind of work I did, in front of the entire Court. When I announced I was a Choreologist with the American Ballet Theater it seemed to confirm his suspicion, but nothing came of it.

Being a model usher with a good speaking voice, I was soon chosen to relieve the switchboard operator on her dinner breaks. I sat at the service entrance, nimbly handling trunk connections and announcing the manager’s visiting cronies in a haughty voice.

My efficiency and politeness soon endeared me to the managers and staff. Even when the regular operator was off or on vacation, I would always be the one chosen to replace her.

The Schubert Theater
Sometimes, I could dash across the street to the Schubert Theater, where the ushers there, as a mutual gesture, would allow me in to see some of the Broadway musicals that were having their Boston try outs.. “Look Ma, I’m Dancin” with Nancy Walker and choreography by Jerome Robbins was the first musical I saw. Then came “Song Of Norway” including the Ballet Russe company. Sometimes dancers from these musicals came in to the Metropolitan to see a movie . I could always tell they were dancers by the way they walked and by their perfect figures. It made me want all the more to be one of them.

Then the midnight train back to Braintree.

There was a movie called “Escape Me Never” with Errol Flynn and Ida Lupino. Flynn played a composer who had written a ballet called “Primavera” which came near the end of the picture. The dancers in this ballet were Mlada Mladova and George Zoritch. Every time the ballet sequence came on I would rush to the front of the aisle to watch it closely, uninterrupted by patrons. George Zoritch was the first real ballet dancer I ever saw, if only in a movie. Many years later, after I had retired to Tucson, Arizona, George lived just down the road from me and we became very good friends. He had also retired, but of course much sooner than I, after finishing his career teaching ballet at the University of Arizona.

Dancing With A Russian Troupe
Russakoff, in a strange kind of way, thought of me as his protégé, probably because if nothing else, I could do the Russian “prisiadki” so well. They became my specialty. It was not long before he took me into his troupe. I made my ‘debut’ at Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island, performing my ‘prisiadki’ on top of a table in some kind of gypsy camp scene. This applause getting step ended with me rifting my legs apart while hurling myself off the table and touching my toes in mid-air before landing. This feat became more and more daring. The one table became two tables, then three. I was a sensation. How I managed to get up there remains a mystery, unless I climbed up before the curtain rose.

Photo: In Senia Russakoff's Rubashka

My costume had a ‘rubashka’ [a Russian shirt] gold satin with red trim, no doubt worn by Senia Russakoff himself in his own dancing days. I couldn’t wait to have my picture taken wearing it. I wore this shirt for many of my modeling assignments as by then I also had a day job modeling for Boston artists. It was truly arduous work, making probably $1.00 an hour standing motionless for twenty minute stretches. If it was at a class of art students at the Massachusetts Institute of Art I could at least have a lunch break or talk to other models. If I was hired out to a private artist, the session usually called for me to be embarrasingly naked. These jobs were usually in private studios in the Fenway.

Not long after my Providence debut, I danced a ‘trepak’ in Boston on the New England Conservatory Of Music stage. Some of my fellow ushers from the Metropolitan came to see me and finally understood what it was that I was trying to do.

Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
I had been studying dance for over a year and had yet to see a single real live ballet performance! Finally the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo came to town and was appearing at the Boston Opera House. I got a ticket to go on my night off. The program was Balanchine’s “Night Shadow” [later named “La Sonnambula”], The “Nutcracker” pas de deux with Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin, and finishing with “Scheherezade”. It was this, the final ballet that I was most anxious to see, with its connection to Nijinsky and the Diaghilev period. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more disappointed! I left feeling depressed, wondering why I had been studying ballet if this was what it was all about. The dancers all looked so tired and colorless. Perhaps the reason was the Ballet Russe was at the end of a long, grueling tour. Years later, when I was a close friend of Michel Katcharoff, who was the ballet master for the Ballet Russe during all those years, I asked him if he remembered that tour. He did, and quite the contrary, they were just starting out on it! I really don’t know why I was so unimpressed by my first viewing of ballet. Perhaps I just expected too much, with all the reading of the glamorous Diaghiliev days. After that I decided to leave ballet for a while. For some odd reason I even thought I would join the Navy. Then, when I boldly went for an examination I got cold feet and pretended to be color blind! Besides, being under-age they never would have taken me.

Basically, I must have really loved dancing. If nothing else, it served as a means of entering some kind of different life from what I grew up with. A crutch if you will. At any rate, before long I was back at it. This time I found what I thought was a more responsible teacher, William T. Murphy, who gave a regular morning class and not the casual, indifferent lessons that Russakoff gave. His studio was in the basement of a building off of Copley Square, behind the Boston Public Library. Basically he was a ballroom dancer. He certainly never gave the impression of ever having performed classical ballet. He taught from a book, the Cecchetti manual. At least, from this book he was able to give us technical theory and corrections and I felt at last I was getting some training in how to dance something else than more and more prisiadkys. He of course had a low opinion of Russakoff and told me I had been wasting my time with him.

Christian Science
There was yet another book in the library that caught my eye, and it was not about dancing. “Science And Health” by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, not only promised healings of all kinds of disease but showed me a sunny new world of love and prosperity. And cleanliness. This was in sharp contrast to the poverty and squalor I was growing up in. Indeed, there did exist people who lived clean, happy lives, and in beautiful homes. As often as I could I went to the Mother church in Boston. The Christian Science Center was and still is almost as big as the Vatican. The “readers”, a man and a woman, seemed to me like the parents I should have had. Always immaculately dressed and bejeweled, they were the picture of affluence and goodness. They sat on throne like chairs in the immaculate edifice. I can’t say that Christian Science healed my hearing problem. Perhaps it adjusted itself normally. Who knows, but it did eventually return to normal.

Photo: The Christian Science Mother Church in Boston

Why did this particular religion appeal to me? Why did any religion appeal to me when as a teenager I should have been thinking only of girls, cars, sports? I had been to the Baptist church Sunday school but that was too much like regular school, with the same bullies I saw every day, who laughed at my ragged clothes and after church would pin me down and stuff dirt down my throat. Then there were the Jehovah’s Witnesses who were very friendly. I even joined them for a while and accepted their Bible lessons. However, I had too many scriptural questions that they were unable to answer so I never became one in earnest. I never became a Christian Scientist either. In fact, I grew to detest all forms of organized religion, but the Christian Science and New Thought teachings seemed to help me survive through the many overwhelming circumstances that were to come.

Staying in Braintree would mean surrendering all of my highest aspirations. I had to leave. On a cold winter morning I surreptitiously quit my ushering job and boarded the bus for New York City.

My First Arrival In New York City
Early in the morning I went directly to the Metropolitan Opera House and sat on the 40th Street stage door steps. I had twenty-dollars in my pocket and all my belongings in a cardboard suitcase that I’d bought at Woolworth’s. People passing by on their way to work looked at me curiously. Was I some lost boy? New York City was a somewhat kinder place in those days. If I had been a bit more enterprising I might have found someone who would take me under wing but I was a bit smarter than that. Instead, I knew that I had to find a job, and fast.

The Roxy was a grand movie palace that stood on 50th Street and 7th Avenue, even grander than the Metropolitan back in Boston. It offered a movie and stage show similar to Radio City Music Hall (only a block away), with a regular corps of dancers called the Roxyettes. This was a line of tap dancing girls who performed their routines on all kinds of props, like huge beach balls on which they balanced themselves while maneuvering them around the stage. They also had their Escorts - a line of eight male tap dancers. After my job with the Metropolitan in Boston, the last thing I wanted was to go back to being an usher, but in reality there was little else I could do.

Photo: The Roxy Interior

As a rule, New York theater ushers were students or trying to become actors, singers, dancers. As in Boston, it was a dead-end job with minimal pay. Instead of searching for a real job I chose this because it had the advantage of free time to take dance classes and attend dance auditions.

Still being under-age, I hid that fact and told the interviewer I was a dancer (I wasn’t – I was only a dance student). Surprisingly, on hearing this she immediately phoned backstage to ask if the house choreographer - at that time Gae Foster - had a place for me. Well, I certainly didn’t have the audacity to present myself as a dancer when I was little more than a beginner. For starters, the male Escorts - all older than I - were basically tap dancers and my training until then had only been Russakoff’s Russian folk dancing. I decided not to embarrass myself by going backstage only to be refused but at least I knew then that a dancing job was truly possible and there would be a chance for me after all somewhere in the future. I took the usher’s job.

Candy Standing
After a week as an usher I must have made a good impression. I was offered a different, more glamorous job as a candy salesman, and with a slight increase in salary. The main candy stand certainly had to be something extraordinary. The Roxy did everything in a grand and alluring way. It was a magnificent structure situated in the palatial main rotunda where I was positioned and dressed in an impeccable uniform and spotlighted. I suspected the uniform was inspired by the Imperial guard of St. Petersburg, Russia. It had many gold buttons and shoulder straps with a little purse attached. What that was for I could never figure out, apart from decoration. I looked dashing. If I was sent out to 7th Avenue and 50th Street to direct the crowds in, I wore a full cape with a witch’s collar. Sometimes the manager would send me to get his supper from his favorite place, the famous Stage Deli. In the flowing cape and a basket over my arm it was hard not to attract stares as I walked down Broadway.

George Maharis, later to become a Hollywood film star by way of his hit TV series “Route 66” was a fellow usher at that time. I would sometimes bring him to watch me in class. He was so handsome. Eating together in the Automat I would notice how girls would swoon over him. His first break was a bit part in the film “Marty”. Another friend at the Roxy was J. Christopher Anderson, a nice fellow from Washington, D.C who later went into the army and was stationed in Paris. He eventually became a writer.

The Roxy Theater
Not much has been written about the Roxy Theater, demolished in 1960 to make way for a non-descript office building. It was a truly marvelous place. The first thing you saw when you entered was the immense “Rotunda”. (We were not allowed to call it a lobby) surrounded by tall, gilded columns and a giant circular carpet spread out on the marble floor. As if it were something sacred, we employees were not even allowed to set foot on it but instead had to walk around it. Above was a glistening chandelier that must have weighted at least two tons hanging from a delicately painted ceiling; almost like that of Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel in Rome. The Roxy was indeed a cathedral.  Statues, frescos and paintings adorned the Rotunda. I’m sure most of the patrons passing through never noticed or realized what palatial surroundings they were in, unless they were tourists.

The famous showman, Mr. Roxy (Samuel Rothafel, who built the theater in 1927) had his own ideas back then of how his staff should be. He thought all his employees should be “with character”. His ideas had apparently taken hold and stayed until my own time there, and beyond. The Chief Quartermaster, a dwarf, had patrons staring in awe as he paraded around the Rotunda in his nifty uniform. One rather flamboyant usher would sometimes entertain the hundreds of patrons waiting on the grand staircase leading up to the loge and upper balconies by performing his acrobatic tricks. They stood in amazement as he cart wheeled up and down the stairs. All these antics I could watch from my viewpoint on the candy stand.

The theater was always crowded, especially on weekends and holidays. Some of Roxy’s star attractions on the stage that I remember from that time included the movie star Danny Kaye and the exotic Peruvian singer Yma Sumac (not Amy Camus from Brooklyn – name spelled backwards - as come claimed). And a surprise; Andre Eglevsky and Melissa Hayden dancing the Don Quixote pas de deux with the entire New York Philharmonic orchestra, conducted by Dimitri Metropolis. Impresario Roxy, or more likely the cultured executive of 20^th Century Fox, Spyros Skouras, trying to bring to the Roxy stage real high-class entertainment as well as the standard vaudeville type acts.

Then there were the movies. The now classic “All About Eve” had its New York premiere there in 1951. Big excitement! The theater was closed all day to be cleaned spotless for the many celebrities that came that evening while searchlights beamed at the skies over Manhattan. Did I get a chance to see Bette Davis? None of the movie stars came near the candy stand but were quickly whisked up to the loges. There was a second candy stand in the first balcony foyer that I sometimes manned.  Beside it was a small window that looked down to the Rotunda below. This window can be seen in a picture in Life magazine (1961) of Gloria Swanson (who opened the theater in 1927) standing in the midst of rubble as the theater was being torn down.

During my third and last year there they covered the full stage with ice and brought in top figure skaters. Ice shows continued for a while after I left, until they installed CinemaScope and did away with stage presentations for good.

My one regret is that at the time, as a naďve kid, I didn’t fully appreciate all of the theater’s wonders. I knew the Rotunda well from looking at it every evening but as a student during the day and then six hours serving demanding and often rude patrons, all I wanted to do was to go home and rest for a morning dance class. But I sometimes did explore the rabbit warren of passageways and nooks and crannies surrounding the cavernous auditorium. Like pulpits, it was amazing to stand inside them and look down at the nearly 4,000 people sitting below. Wandering backstage I saw the giant stage from the wings, the rehearsal studios and the various production departments. I discovered this vast area was, oddly enough, built into a corner. Apparently, in order to make it fit into the lot, the entire theater was built at a 45-degree angle from 50^th towards 51^st Street.

What eventually happened to that magnificent circular carpet that was spread out in the Rotunda? The paintings and sculptures? The dancer’s costumes and props? The massive stage scenery and the magnificent chandelier? The original architectural designs, costume sketches, music scores? Was it all sold at auction, like the costumes, props and furniture at MGM Studios in Culver City? Or was it all lost or destroyed? Now, so many years later, we can only wonder why such a wondrous place could disappear so quickly. Since that time I have danced in theaters all over the world but the Roxy somehow stays fixed in my memory. It kept me alive during those difficult years and served as my first humble step into the New York world of show business.

George Chaffee
As soon as I got more or less settled in New York at Sloane House YMCA, I found a proper ballet teacher, George Chaffee. In exchange for classes, as scholarships were unheard of then, I cleaned his studio floors and walls and emptied his garbage. After work, as his studio was on 56th Street, not far from the Roxy, I would dash to the studio to rehearse with his company. Chaffee was a dance historian and iconographer and was an authority on the French historical dance. Besides ballet technique he taught us minuets and galliards...

Photo left: George Chaffee - Photo below: Me as Harlequin

When the company made a tour to Atlanta, GA., the Roxy gave me the week off to go. We stayed at a hotel across the street from the famous Fox Theater where not only "Gone With The Wind” had premiered many years earlier, but where I was to dance in the future while on tour with the Metropolitan Opera.

Much of Chaffee’s work was re-creating ballets in the French style of the 18th century. For this tour I danced , with Eve Beck, a minuet from the ballet "Les Characteres de la Danse”. The authentic and overly elaborate costumes we wore were barely distinguishable from each other, decked in huge skirts and feathered headpieces as in the Court of Louis XIV. Backstage at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York, I had to go through doorways sideways in order to get through. Something called "Piccolini" had me doing a Harlequin dance.

Broadway
At that time there were few opportunities for male dancers: Ballet Theater and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo were the only professional ballet companies. Of course, Broadway musicals used male dancers but I was not really the Broadway type. Not that they were off limits for me or that I didn’t try. I usually made the final “call back” group but in the end was eliminated as height and singing ability were a usual requirement and I was short and couldn’t sing.. Once when we had to show we could sing I was brave enough to try, right on the stage of the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway. Knowing no lyrics I was told to sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’. I got no further than ‘oh say can you see, by the …’ when the pianist stopped and I got a quick ‘thank you, next’.

There was one Broadway musical I auditioned for and was picked out of about a hundred other dancers. “Plain And Fancy” was about the Amish people and it turned out they were actually looking for a short dancer as a replacement. Helen Tamiris was the choreographer. During one of the on-stage dance combinations, her male assistant said to me in a hushed voice, “you’d better smile if you want the job”. From then on I beamed with every step. There’s a song in “A Chorus Line”: [Oh God, I need this job]. That was exactly how I felt at that audition. Then the dancer I was to replace decided not to leave after all so it was back to the Roxy.

If it were not for the Automats in those days I would definitely have starved. They were all over Manhattan. Each one had dozens of tiny compartments containing food items. By putting a nickel in a slot, the door opened and out came your selection. The one on 57th Street was my favorites. For a mere 25 cents I could get three vegetables, a roll and a cup of coffee. That was the beginning of my life long vegetarianism.

The Metropolitan Opera Ballet School
The Metropolitan Opera had its own ballet school right in the opera house. An English lady, Margaret Curtis was the teacher. She and her companion, Kathleen Harding, the secretary of the school, had been there since 1911. There was really no other ballet school in New York, or the entire country for that matter, that was quite like it. Because of its proximity to the stage it had the atmosphere of the theater about it and you could easily feel you were a part of it all. Boris Romanoff was the resident choreographer and Alexander Gavrilov from the Diaghilev days taught company class.

The old, musty and cluttered building stood on Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets since 1884. The stage door on 40th Street side led to an ancient elevator which took you to an upper floor and from there you had to climb a staircase further on up to the roof stage where the ballet studio was located. On the way up you could sometimes see costumes hanging in the hallways, especially if the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo were in town and appearing there. Miss Harding accompanied classes on the piano and took in the money. My class was every morning at ten o’clock after which I would walk through Times Square to the Roxy and my regular job. I felt I was in heaven being within the hallowed walls of the Met that I had so often listened to on the radio back home in Braintree.

One Saturday afternoon I became a walk-on and carried a spear in “Aida”. Marina Svetlova and Leon Varkas were the principal dancers and I made sure I got into a good position on stage to watch them perform. I made friends with other students, mostly Cuban boys my own age and a girl, Aurele Pelton who lived in Valley Stream, Long Island. When she got a job with the Radio City Music Hall ballet company she asked if I would take over classes at her school. I had never taught before, but welcomed the chance to make some extra money, even if it meant traveling out to Far Rockaway on the train every Saturday morning. It was a school filled with children, horribly spoiled children who were always playing pranks on me. Being inexperienced, I didn’t know exactly how to deal with them. Aurele’s mother, who played the piano for the classes, often had to step in and tell me what to do. But the extra money, added to my meager Roxy salary made me feel suddenly rich.

One evening on the train back to Manhattan I happened to read the headlines on a newspaper someone was holding. It was April 8th 1950 and the headline was NIJINSKY DEAD! He had died in England after a long illness at the age of 60. No film exists of his dancing. The photographs give only a faint hint of his genius. He danced in public for only ten years before insanity took over his life, yet the legend refuses to die. Many male dancers of today have the technical skill to easily out-dance him, but during his brief career he was without peer.

The Tudor/Craske Regime
There suddenly was a big change with the Met Ballet when American Ballet Theater took over. Margaret Curtis disappeared and Margaret Craske and Antony Tudor were installed as the school directors. Romanoff and Gavrilov also left and Zachary Solov became resident choreographer. All of the Met dancers except two were replaced after an audition given by Tudor and Lucia Chase, the founder of Ballet Theater. It was a whole new regime. Craske was like a British schoolmistress and conducted her highly disciplined classes in a conversational tone. I didn’t care that much for her classes which tended to be predictable and basic. I wanted to learn fast. Tudor had the highest reputation and had already created most of his famous ballets. His classes were nerve wracking because you were never sure when he was going to embarrass you with some acid remark. When my month’s tuition ran out I asked Miss Harding for a scholarship but she now had to ask Tudor. I sensed she was disappointed when he took one look at me and said no. Realizing I was needy and feeling sorry for me she offered me what she could, a chance to be a supernumerary in the operas. They paid $2.00 a performance.

In “Rigoletto” I was one of four court musicians placed on a balcony when the curtain opened on the first act. We mimed playing the instruments while the dancers performed below. This was a brand new production and even we supers were sent to the great Karinska for costume fittings. With her mascara smearing down her face, Karinska placed a white, pumpkin shaped hat on me and exclaimed how ‘handsome’ I looked with my innocent, boyish face, sad green eyes and bangs jutting out from under the hat. Donald Mahler was another class mate and super playing a faux instrument along beside me in those bright, new costumes of Mme. Karinska. It was a spanking new production designed by Eugene Berman. We would look down from our on-stage balcony perch at the dancers below and dream that one day we also could be doing the same. Donald remained with the Met ballet school, later becoming a Met dancer and was still there when I joined the Met as resident choreologist in 1966. He eventually became the Met's ballet master, replacing Dame Alicia Markova after the long nine month strike of 1969 when so many left, including myself. Afterwards he became an authority on several of Antony Tudor's works that he stages for major companies world wide.

In 1966 when we were both dancing in the newly built Met in Lincoln Center they were still doing that same production of Rigoletto. By then we were regular company artists of the ballet and a new set of supers were up on the balcony, playing the same instruments and wearing the same costumes we once wore. The beautiful hats that Karinska had made and fitted had by then become tattered and threadbare. Would my name still be inside I wondered.

In 1951 the Met was also doing a new production of “Aida” to open the season. Margharita Wallman, a ferocious and demanding woman, was stage director who decided to make a complete break with past tradition and be very particular about what the supers should look like. She actually auditioned them, whereas before they would either be we ballet students from the school or else anyone who happened to walk in off the street. She wanted them all to be tall and muscular, the hefty football types. That of course left me out. But after opening night and the college guys she hired had experienced the fun of appearing in an opera, it was back to using what was available.  

So, for the rest of the year and into the next, I supered in AIDA and in all the other operas that went on that season. I was able to make about $15 on a good week, enough to survive on

Bronislava Nijinska And The Ballet Theater School
In September, Lucia Chase opened the Ballet Theater School on West 56th Street. It was to be the official school for the company and she was very excited about it. Bronislava Nijinska herself was head of the faculty. Other teachers were Anatole Vilzak, Ludmilla Schollar, William Dollar, Edward Caton and other big names brought in occasionly to give a master class, like Agnes DeMille or Anton Dolin. I decided to give it a try and did Nijinska’s class. This was the great Bronislava Nijinska, sister of Vaslav whose life had inspired me to dance in the first place. Here I was, actually in her presence and taking instruction from her. She did not speak any English and was very frightening in her black silk pajama suit and clenching a long cigarette holder. This was the same image she left with thousands of other dancers. Her husband sat in the corner of the studio, translating her corrections to us. Afterwards, I somehow mustered up the nerve to ask her, in Russian, if I could by any chance have a scholarship as I did not have any money to pay for lessons.

Photo: Bronislava Nijinska

The answer was ‘yes’. Whether this was because she had seen some great potential in me, or because I happened to be the only boy in the class I have no way of knowing. I rather think it was a bit of both as she thereafter seemed to show a great deal of attention and interest in me. Unfortunately, it was not too long before she was gone. The reasons were not clear. Studio politics of some kind concerning her and William Dollar. At any rate, I stayed on in spite of continually being summoned upstairs to the company office to be asked to pay at least some tuition, even if only half. Unlike today, scholarships for boys were not so freely given. Elena Balieff, another imposing white Russian lady, was the school director. Perhaps she put in a word for me.

Vilzak and Schollar were the main teachers. Both were from the Maryinsky in St. Petersburg. Ludmilla had actually danced with Nijinsky. It is incredible to think that 45 years later Vilzak was still teaching and he was rather old back then in my time.

Edward Caton’s classes were boring for me. Too basic. But he had a personality that was amusing. With his grating, scratchy voice, due to a previous throat operation, he would bark to the pianist, Valya Vishnevskaya: “Valya, Valse, pozhalusta”. [Valya, a waltz please]. Then Valya, another Soviet refugee, would take off with a lilting, dancey waltz.

My steady girl friend at that time, Joan Josephson, was working in Woolworth’s nearby. We had met in Nathalia Branitzka’s ballet class and were even foolishly planning marriage. When I was barely surviving by myself this would have been a disastrous mistake but fortunately it all came to an end when her parents talked us out of it.

Stopping by to pick her up one afternoon before she got off, my favorite teacher, Mme. Schollar happened to come along. After introducing them I mentioned that Madam had actually once danced with Nijinsky. To my amazement, Madam then said that in class I danced even better than him! I couldn’t believe my ears. I figured that the only reason she could have said this was that she thought my girl friend would be impressed on hearing it.

Photo left: Joan Josephson

Photo: Yurek Lazovsky

Then there was Yurek Lazovsky’s twice weekly character classes that I had access to. At that time, Lazovsky was the only well-known teacher of ‘character’ in New York. He was on the faculty of nearly every major ballet school in and around the city and shuttled from studio to studio in a never-ending grind of classes. A patient and kindly man, I can still see him, carefully demonstrating for every newcomer, and there was always a newcomer in the class, each exercise of his ‘set’ barre. From my previous experience with Russakoff I had no trouble picking up his steps and technique and he seemed to take a fatherly interest in me. I wore the red boots that I had actually stolen from the Met’s “Khovanschina” and I felt quite the little Russian. When members of the company, John Kriza and Eric Bruhn were in town they would often stand in the studio door and watch me. Before long, Lazovsky took me into his short-lived Polish/American dance company. We were touring the Polish opera, “Halka” and performing its mazurka and polonaise in bright new costumes. In each city, after the performance, there would be a late supper with Lazovsky’s friends from the Polish community. As hungry dancers we naturally looked forward to these, but also to the singing and dancing that usually followed. Later, as a soloist with the Metropolitan Opera, where character dancing is so often highlighted, I found this early link with Lazovsky very valuable.

Supering At The Met
The most exciting opera to appear in that year must have been ‘Alceste”. This too was a new production and served as farewell for the great dramatic soprano, Kirsten Flagstad. As in all Gluck operas, the ballet plays a main role. The Met needed extra dancers. Zachary Solov, the Met’s chief choreographer, decided to augment the regular corps de ballet with several of us students from the school. We were to be paid the princely sum of $5.00 a performance, a huge increase over the usual $2.00. More important was the thrill of actually dancing on the Met stage as part of the ballet. We rehearsed on the roof stage along with the company dancers. What excitement to be actually rehearsing with the ballet company and to be regarded as dancers, though we did not do much dancing other than arranging ourselves in various Grecian poses.

The performances with Flagstad were unforgettable. She was a large woman, with beautiful, translucent skin and bright, shining eyes. In one scene we were all posed as Greek statues at the top of a stairway which she had to ascend. Climbing towards us and gasping for breath, she would say to us with her back to the audience how she wished she were a dancer like us. Imagine how elated we were hearing this.

At the final performance, Flagstad was taking endless curtain calls and the General Manager Rudolph Bing brought her a glass of champagne which she drank on stage, then threw the glass into the wings, breaking it into pieces.

Another opera was Massenet’s “Manon”. Victoria de los Angeles made her entrance in a horse pulled coach while I, as a stable boy, meandered about the giant stage set. At some point, baskets of real bread and apples were given out. I don’t know the reason why these were there, but since I had no money for food all day and probably wouldn’t, I made sure to get some and went into an on stage gazebo and ate. That’s about how poor I was. There was another super, Bill Aubrey, a dance student who lived hand to mouth as I did. To my amazement, he once told me he would read nothing but poetry, a statement I found mind-boggling.

We supers were kept in a kind of dungeon under the stage which was always freezing cold in winter. Even so, we were so entirely devoted to what we were doing, we arrived way before time to go on. Probably it would be just holding a candelabra during one act of ‘Marriage Of Figaro” or running on stage in the final moments of ‘Die Gotterdammerung’. Regardless, we would spend hours making up for just that one appearance. Oddly enough, it is those times as a lowly super at the old Met that I remember most vividly, while the years when I was a dancer and choreologist at the new Met at Lincoln Center seem dim by comparison.

The Common Glory
One day, in the public library dance collection, I saw Myra Kinch. She was a modern dance teacher and choreographer, known mostly for her comic dance, “Giselle’s Revenge”. I knew she was choreographer for “The Common Glory”, a historical pageant put on every summer in Williamsburg, Virginia. It told the story of the American revolution from Patrick Henry’s ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech to the American victory at Yorktown. It used dancers. I bravely approached her and asked if I could audition for her.
It so happened, she was about to teach a class around the corner and invited me to join it. Unlike today, when dancers are at ease in both disciplines of ballet and modern dance, at that time they were still a bit separated. I must have had some quality she liked because she hired me on the spot and sent me off to Williamsburg.. This was to be my very first job as a professional dancer.

There were eight of us boy dancers and an equal number of girls. We shared apartments and rehearsed in the gym of the College of William And Mary, then on the vast stage of the outdoor amphitheater where the production went on. One of the steps I had to perform, as a Colonial American settler, was crossing the stage in a series of jumps landing in a wide 2nd position. Since it was a cement stage, at the end of the day my thighs were so sore I could barely walk. I begged to be let out of this step but Myra said that she particularly liked my “‘bouncy” quality and I would have to stay in it..

Behind the stage was a lake on which they had placed mock battleships as part of the play. It was the time of the Revolutionary war. We had to do a harvester’s dance, a pioneer dance, a minuet and finish off with a maypole dance. Every evening, directly after the performance we had to unravel the maypole ribbons. We also had to fight in the big battle scenes, either as American soldiers or British red coats. Every evening we would have fun deciding which side we would take. It didn’t matter. We changed back and forth to avoid monotony. There were actors playing Washington or Jefferson, some who later became famous, like Andy Griffith. Goldie Hawn also danced in The Common Glory at the beginning of her career.

On the 4th of July we were marshaled into appearing in the town in costume as part of the re-enactment of the reading of the Declaration Of Independence from the balcony of the Governor’s Palace. This was in fact the actual place in history where it was read. Each of us were assigned to posts along the main street and were supposed to join in the procession to the mansion and there listen to the Declaration. Afterwards we were to perform our maypole dance from the production for the tourists, who were everywhere to witness this historical spectacle.

The summer wore on. Each evening we hoped for rain as that meant the performance would be cancelled and we could have the night off. There were trips to Yorktown battlefield and drinking ale at the famous Chowning’s local tavern.

Towards summer’s end we gave a dance concert. I choreographed a pas de deux to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. I called it simply “Prokofiev”. The leading ‘ballerina” from the pageant and myself danced it. It was my first effort at choreography. All the other works on the program were modern but mine was the only one to receive high praise in the local paper.

Photo: Rehearsing on the stage in Willamsburg

The summer over, we all headed in our own directions, I back to New York and Sloane House YMCA. Resuming my classes at Ballet Theater school, Madam Balieff said I had lost weight and looked terrible. I thought I looked sleek and trim.

                Copyright © 2006-2008 Richard Holden