Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer, the flame-haired ballerina-turned-actress who became an international star in "The Red Shoes," a poetic and sen-sual film that inspired generations of young dancers, died recently in Oxford, England. No cause of death was reported. She was 80.
Using Technicolor photography, "The Red Shoes" (1948) was one of the most stunning films of its vintage, and its entrancing, porcelain-skinned heroine was credited with almost single-handedly popularizing ballet for millions. However, in later years she disparaged the film and its cost to her ballet career, saying, "Isn't it strange that something you've never really wanted to do turns out to be the very thing that's given you a name and identity?"
Moira Shearer King was born in Scotland and her family moved Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where she was pushed into dance lessons by her mother. She called her upbringing strict and provincial, lightened only by her parents' knowledge of music, which she cherished. After the family returned to Scotland, she received lessons from Nikolai Legat, the Russian master who had trained Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as from Legat's widow.
Ninette de Valois, the founder of the prestigious Sadler's Wells Ballet, made Shearer a principal dancer with her organization. In 1946, she danced "Swan Lake" as Odette and Odile and "The Sleeping Beauty" as Princess Aurora. Also that year, she was in Frederick Ashton's "Symphonic Variations."
Survivors include her husband and four children.