Margot Fonteyn: A Life (Hardcover)

by Meredith Daneman (Author) "In the earliest photographs, she is neither sleeping nor a beauty..." (more)
Key Phrases: next ballet, dancing years, pointe shoes, New York, Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) earned her title of prima ballerina assoluta with her elegant presence, exquisite musicality and eloquent line. She was Frederick Ashton's muse, Rudolf Nureyev's partner and, for more than 40 years, the ideal of the English ballet style. As Daneman relates in this admiring and compulsively readable biography, well before forging her partnership with Nureyev, Fonteyn was a star, Britain's "Queen of Ballet." She was already in her early 40s when Nureyev defected in 1961 and she danced Giselle with him; despite the 20-year age gap, the unlikely pair generated magic on stage. Fonteyn was rejuvenated as a dancer: her career lasted an additional 15 years. But in Daneman's astute telling, Fonteyn's personal life proves more fascinating than her dance legend. She performed in London during the blitz, becoming "a national mascot," and was discovered in her hotel bed with a lover the night German troops entered the Hague. She had many lovers (Nureyev perhaps among them) before marrying Roberto Arias in 1955; Arias was a former Panamanian ambassador suspected of planning a coup against the government of President Ernesto de la Guarda. Fonteyn gave her final performance in the early 1970s and then retired to Panama to live with Arias, who had been paralyzed in an assassination attempt. Daneman has impeccable credentials: a graduate of London's Royal Ballet School and a former member of the Australian Ballet company, she's written four novels. Both critically sophisticated and dramatically compelling, this is a must-read for balletomanes as well as biography aficionados. Illus. not seen by PW.
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From The New Yorker
Daneman's biography is probably the closest examination that could be made of the notoriously reticent English ballerina. In the nineteen-thirties, British ballet, which still barely existed, needed a young, homegrown star. The teen-aged Fonteyn stepped into the light, and over the next three decades her simplicity, lyricism, and understated emotionalism—qualities nursed in her by the great choreographer Frederick Ashton—came to represent the English style in classical dance. Then Rudolf Nureyev, almost twenty years her junior, defected to the West, and their lady-tames-lion partnership kept her dancing into her sixties—too long, but who cares now? Daneman tells us the hard parts: Fonteyn's weakness for men who treated her badly ("Shit, shit, you dance like shit," Nureyev would yell at her), her steely gentility (she was often compared to the Queen), and her distaste for introspection—indeed, at times, for truth. But that was just in life. Onstage, she told the truth.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (October 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670843709
• ISBN-13: 978-0670843701
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #693,781 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glowing Tale of Genius, November 4, 2004

By	Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Throughout her long career, audiences had something like a physical response to Margot Fonteyn dancing. Even now, in film clips, there is something there, something inexplicable that makes you gasp. She strikes you to your deepest core. That thing, of course, was genius. In her outstanding biography of the great British ballerina, Meredith Daneman guides us through a life lived in art. "Margot Fonteyn" is the best sort of biography, one that is as engrossing as a really good novel.

Born Peggy Hookham in northern England, Fonteyn was fortunate to have fine teachers from the start. When her father's business took the family to Shanghai in the late 1920's, Her astute mother found exiled Russian ballerinas to pass their training on to her. They returned to England in the mid-30's and Peggy auditioned for Ninette de Valois' Sadlers Wells ballet company. She was accepted, re-baptized Margot Fonteyn, and danced for Sadlers Wells (later the Royal Ballet) for most of a career that lasted until she was nearly 60 years old.

Forget about anorexia, drug problems, temper tantrums, and injuries. "Simple", and "pure" are two words used to describe her art, and that simplicity carried over into her life. If she had never rocketed to international fame following the company's first New York visit following WWII, it would have been fine with her. She learned and grew from every change she faced-never more obvious than her ability to reach a new level of greatness during her partnership with Rudolf Nureyev. That partnership began when she was on the verge of retirement and extended her career for nearly two decades.

If there is any fault with Daneman's biography, it is that it is a little too adoring. Daneman does not skip over Fonteyn's attraction to unworthy men, notably alky composer Constant Lambert and creepy Panamanian philanderer/thug/husband Tito Arias, but somehow it doesn't show it to detract from her as a person. The photos selected for the book are also a little disappointing. Nonetheless this beautifully written, entrancing biography of genius is a wonderful read and makes you want to see films, video, anything that lets you again experience the joy of Margot dancing.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written biography of the beloved ballerina, October 30, 2004

By	Ivy Lin (NY NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Margot Fonteyn was perhaps the most beloved ballerina of her generation, but until now there hasnt been a full, comprehensive biography of her eventful, colorful life and career. Former ballerina Meredith Daneman has at last given Margot the book she deserves.
Fans of the ballerina and also of ballet in general should get this book. Besides Fonteyn, there are several memorable characters that Daneman brings to life: the Royal Ballet Svengali Frederick Ashton, the indomitable, scheming Ninette de Valois, Fonteyn's ironwilled mother (known as Black Queen), Fonteyn's dastardly husband Tito Arias, Fonteyn's great partner Rudolf Nureyev, Fonteyn's lover Constant Lambert. Daneman describes the ruthless, competitive atmosphere of backstage at a ballet company, a world as entertaining as the onstage performances. About whether Fonteyn herself resorted to backstabbing and scheming, Daneman is ambiguous. She quotes friends as saying Fonteyn was "very competitive" but lets the readers make the final calls about some questionable events: Moira Shearer's fall from grace at Covent Garden, the "grabbing" of Juliet from Kenneth MacMillan's muse Lynn Seymour. Daneman somehow got access to Margot Fonteyn's mothers diaries, which she quotes liberally. Nita Hookham becomes the second heroine of the book: a smart, devoted woman of common sense and humor. If Nita Hookham is the second heroine of the book, then Ninette de Valois is the villainess: a woman who promoted her "favorites" and ruthlessly destroyed careers without a second thought.
As for Fonteyn herself, Daneman is sympathetic but candid. Margaret "Peggy" Hookham comes across as a complex personality. The ballerina who personified British gentility and grace was in her offstage life both reserved and passionate, naive and cunning, dignified and giggly. She was politically obtuse, supporting dictators like the Marcoses or General Pinochet (plus her revolutionary Panamanian husband Tito Arias), and even danced in apartheid South Africa. But she was also remarkably sensitive and supportive of her friend Rudolf Nureyev when he was dying of AIDS, and this is all the more impressive if anyone remembers the paranoid, homophobic atmosphere of the 1980s, even among the "educated" circles. Fonteyn could coldly cut off lovers, but remained slavishly devoted to her philandering husband Tito. She pinched pennies but generously supported her sister-in-law for life. One gets the feeling that Fonteyn grew to be a better person as she aged. Daneman includes enough anecdotes to give the reader a real sense of Margot's personality. A charming, if off-color one: when Ivan Nagy insisted on calling Margot "Dame", she called him "Sir." He explained that in Hungarian, "Sir" means "pubic hair," and from then on he was only "Sir" to her.
Like most biographies Daneman's isn't perfect. Some of it veers on the gossipy -- did we really need testaments from Margot's ex-lovers about how great she was "sexually"? I also felt Daneman was a bit unfair about Nureyev -- she's more judgemental about disapproving than the very genteel Fonteyn ever was. The pictures are surprisingly disappointing, especially for such a photographed figure as Margot. There are, however, some eyebrow-raising pictures of Margot posing topless during vacations with friends.
ETA: one thing I think is important to keep in mind about this book is that you should read it as a historical record not only of a dancer, but of an era in ballet history. The book is very thorough about Fonteyn's career, which went through a lot of "stages". There is quite a bit of backstage talk, and I for one took it with a grain of salt. For one, it is usually "secondhand" -- for instance, "someone heard Lynn Seymour say" rather than "Lynn Seymour said." I suppose this can't be helped but it's one thing to keep in mind.
But these are quibbles for a good addition to any balletomane's library. Daneman is lucky in that she chose a wonderful subject. Margot Fonteyn may not have been perfect, neither as a woman nor as a dancer, but I think readers will close the book with a sense of admiration and affection for the most graceful and enchanting of ballerinas.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enigma Nearly Solved, March 13, 2005

By	Gregory B. Mowery "opera lover" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I dragged this huge biography of Britain's most famous ballerina with me to Europe, and missed quite a few monuments along the way. Daneman's engaging, thoroughly engrossing biography of the extraordinary rise and very long reign of Fonteyn at the pinnacle of the ballet world, makes for compulsive reading. For not only is this the life of Fonetyn, it is an in-depth look at the rise of English ballet that managed to forge its own mighty presence in a world thoroughly dominated by the Russians. Peggy Hookum, with the immense and far-sighted support of a loving and determined mother, became a key player in the ascendancy of Saddler's Wells and later the Royal Ballet. Favored by the company's indomitable founder, Ninette De Valois, Fonteyn danced her first Aurora in SLEEPING BEAUTY while still in her teens. De Valois show-cased her progress in the classics as well as in ballets created by Frederick Ashton. Daneman offers vivid portraits of the fledgling company's big personalites such as Robert Helpmann (Fonteyn's first significant dancing partner), Constant Lambert (the company's music director, conductor, composer and long-time lover of Fonteyn), and Michael Somes (Fonteyn's partner in the 40s, 50s and early 60s). This is not always a harmonious group. De Valois emerges here as a shrewd leader who forced Alicia Markova,the company's first prima ballerina out in order to pave the way for her favorites, and dangerously manipulated the careers of Beryl Gray and Moira Shearer (most tellingly Shearer who was a star due to THE RED SHOES film. Sol Hurok, who presented the Saddler's Wells Ballet in it's historic first visit to the Metropolitan Opera House in 1949, demanded that Shearer dance the opening night Aurora. De Valois stuck to her guns and insisted Fonteyn have that honor--and prevailed). Ashton is revealed not only as the great choreopgraphic genius that he was, but also a petty, snobbish and often vindictive company in-fighter, fully capapble of getting what he wanted (his lack of support of Kenneth MacMillan's choice of Lynne Seymour to dance the first prima of the company's ROMEO AND JULIET, almost certainly seems to be a petty act of jealousy). Robert Helpmann's character, great humor, and ability to keep the company going through the war years, makes him admirable--and very quotable--in every way.

Throughout the many years of her long dominance, Fonteyn is totally fascinating, although she nearly seems at times a passive player in the events surrounding her. Some have complained here that the book is too long, or that Daneman resorts to gossip in trying to find out if Fonteyn and Nuryev were ever lovers. Nonsense, we all want to know and Daneman knows we want to know. Nureyev was a sacred monster, a genius and a wild man of discipline, enourmous sexual appetites, self-indugent and often thoroghly dislikable. Danenman captures the complexity of the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev. Each brought to the other a special quality that enhanced their partnership and enduring affection. Nureyev could be cruel, hurling verbal abuse and acting insufferably childish towards her, but Fonteyn's dancing in her early 40s was a revelation to critics, audiences, and herself--she actually managed for a few more years to top herself in her prime. De Valois actually thought this partnership could give Margot five more years of a career. Their partnership would extend to 17 years.

Daneman's effort is hardly hagiographic. Fonteyn, who was often admired for her diligence, hard work, and ability to be an inspiring team leader, was also capable of being competitive, politically naive (her questionable friendships with Imelda Marcos, General Noriega, and Chile's Pinnochet are not glossed over), and far wilder than her lady-like exterior would have us believe. She had lousy taste in men and Daneman, without resorting to too much psychologising, makes us understand her attraction to the lousy men in her life. Constant Lambert was a talented musician who cultivated Fonteyn's life-long love of books (she was poorly educated), but he was also a hopeless drunk, fat and unkempt, who ultimately abandoned Fonteyn. Even worse is her long relationship with Roberto Arias, the spoiled and pampered Panamanian who became Fonteyn's only husband. A politician, serial adulterer, Arias was shot by a political ally, rendering him a paraplegic for the rest of his life. At the time of the shooting, Fonteyn was seriously considering a divorce from a husband who was rarely around and flagrantly conducted his affairs right under his wife's nose. Yet when Arias was shot, Fonteyn more than proved her loyalty. The huge medical costs over the ensuing twenty five years of his life would bankrupt Fonteyn, forcing her to dance, her technique sagging visibly, until she was nearly 60. She endured with most of her dignity in tact--and the bum she called her husband didn't deserve her loyalty.

Some very starry dancers from Pavlova to Sibley, Ulanova, Baryshnikov, Norah Kaye, Eric Bruhn, and others all add to Daneman's disctinctive narrative. Daneman's novelistic eye constantly offers the telling detail. Her writing often soars off the page. I felt I was witnessing the aura of magic that Fonteyn radiated from the stage. Even the oft-told tale of her complete triumph as Aurora during that historic first visit to the U.S. in 1949, seems newly minted here. This is what a great biography should be, and with Fonteyn at its dazzling center, here are hours of thrilling history, behind-the-scenes drama, and all the color anyone could expect from a fabulous life brilliantly told.