[BITList] Follow her footsteps

[John Feltham]

To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject,
visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2010-06-06



Shearer,  Moira  [née Moira Shearer King; married name Moira Shearer Kennedy, Lady Kennedy]  (1926-2006), ballet dancer, actress, and writer, was born on 17 January 1926 at Morton Lodge, Dunfermline, Fife, the only child of Harold Charles King, civil engineer, and his wife, Margaret Crawford Reid, nee Shearer. Part of her early childhood was spent in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia. It was her mother who insisted on her learning to dance, initially with a former Diaghilev dancer in Ndola. After returning to Scotland and studying at Dunfermline high school and Bearsden Academy, Glasgow, she resumed her dance classes in London with Flora Fairbairn and subsequently Nadine Nicolaeva Legat, then at Sadler's Wells School. Her professional debut came at the age of fifteen with Mona Inglesby's new International Ballet. Other dancers greatly admired the strong technique, classical style, and grace of her Swallow solo in Inglesby's creation Planetomania, not to mention her physical beauty, set off by the red hair that she kept throughout her life.

At the age of sixteen Moira Shearer joined the Sadler's Wells company, taking part in their wartime tours and London seasons. Soon she was given many standard solos besides taking roles specially made for her: by Frederick Ashton as Pride in his Faerie Queene ballet The Quest; by Ninette de Valois in a trio in her display ballet Promenade; by Andree Howard as Butterfly in her Festin de l'araignee; and by Robert Helpmann as a young lover in his Miracle in the Gorbals. When Sadler's Wells moved to Covent Garden in 1946 Ashton cast Shearer as one of the three ballerinas in his immensely admired classic ballet Symphonic Variations, which would alone have been enough to make her name for all time. Soon afterwards Ashton made the role of the young wife for her in his Don Juan, and also chose her to replace the injured Margot Fonteyn at the premiere of his first full-evening ballet, Cinderella, with himself and Helpmann playing the ugly sisters. About this time Leonide Massine arrived as guest choreographer and dancer, and he picked Shearer to dance with him the can-can in La boutique fantasque, one of his most celebrated ballets. Thereafter he gave her the lead in the British premiere of his ballet Mam'zelle Angot, and followed that by creating a new work around her, Clock Symphony, to Haydn's music. Soon, in 1950, she had further roles she greatly enjoyed: in Georges Balanchine's classic Ballet imperial at Covent Garden and in Roland Petit's dramatic Carmen in Paris.

Shearer had, reluctantly, been persuaded to take the lead, as a ballerina who finally kills herself for love, in The Red Shoes, which proved to be the most popular ballet film ever made, constantly repeated on television after its premiere in 1948. Consequently, when the Sadler's Wells Ballet first visited New York, Shearer was its best-known member there and the American management wanted her to dance Princess Aurora on the opening night, but de Valois naturally and rightly insisted that that distinction had to go to Margot Fonteyn. Shearer was given the prominent although smaller Bluebird duet. Her debut in that role at Covent Garden was booed by fans who thought it unfair to take it away from its usual interpreter, Violetta Elvin. The Red Shoes led to further ballet films: as both Olympia and Stella in Tales of Hoffman (1951) and the Cyrano de Bergerac section of Petit's 1-2-3-4 ou Les collants noirs (1960). Having revealed acting skills in Red Shoes, she was cast in dramatic films like The Story of Three Loves (1953), The Man who Loved Redheads (1955), and Peeping Tom (1960).

Meanwhile, on 25 February 1950, at the Chapel Royal in Hampton Court Palace, Shearer had married Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (1919-2009), author and broadcaster, and son of Edward Coverley Kennedy, naval officer. They had three daughters and a son between 1966 and 1971. She became Lady Kennedy when her husband was knighted in 1994.

Shearer left the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1952 but did have a few further dancing roles: in Michel Fokine's Le spectre de la rose with the London Festival Ballet at Monte Carlo in 1952; in Gold Diggers, a gala number made for her as a Fred Astaire figure by Peter Darrell with the Scottish Ballet in 1980 (she also acted with lucidity and charm as commentator in their film of August Bournonville's three-act classic Napoli), and finally creating the mother in Gillian Lynne's film ballet about the painter Lowry, A Simple Man, for Northern Ballet in 1987, although she declined to repeat the role on its stage transfer.

From 1954, however, Shearer preferred acting, first as Titania in an Old Vic production of Midsummer Night's Dream at the Edinburgh festival and touring North America. There followed Sally Bowles in Isherwood's I Am a Camera in 1955. In the same year she joined the Bristol Old Vic, and was Shaw's Major Barbara there in 1956. She appeared in A Man of Distinction at the Edinburgh festival in 1957. Much later, when the Kennedys were living by the Water of Leith, she played Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard (1977) and Judith Bliss in Hay Fever (1978), both at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, and Juliana Bordereau in The Aspern Papers (1994) at the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow.

Meanwhile Shearer had begun lecturing on ballet and giving poetry and prose recitals, often with her husband, including three tours on the liner Queen Elizabeth II. She also became a regular book reviewer (not only of dance books) for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph; contributed articles on Ashton and Balanchine to the Dictionary of National Biography; and published two books of her own, Balletmaster: a Dancer's View of George Balanchine (1986), and a biography of Ellen Terry (1998). But after starting her memoirs she abandoned them, claiming that nobody would find the subject interesting. She was a member of the BBC's general advisory council (1970-77) and of the Scottish Arts Council (1971-3), and was a director of Border Television (1977-82).

In their later years the Kennedys moved to Avebury, Wiltshire, and later to Boars Hill, Oxford. In 2000 Shearer was diagnosed as suffering from viral encephalitis, which impaired her memory. About the time of her eightieth birthday she felt notably weak, was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and died there of septicaemia and a urinary tract infection on 31 January 2006, surrounded by her family. She was survived by her husband, Ludovic, and their four children.

John Percival 

Sources  P. Noble, British ballet (1948) + H. Fisher, Moira Shearer (1952) + H. Koegler, The concise Oxford dictionary of ballet, 2nd edn., updated (1987) + The Times (2 Feb 2006) + Daily Telegraph (2 Feb 2006) + The Guardian (2 Feb 2006) + The Independent (2 Feb 2006); (3 Feb 2006) + Burke, Peerage + WW (2006) + personal knowledge (2010) + private information (2010) + b. cert. + m. cert. + d. cert.
Archives  FILM BFI NFTVA, Borderers, N. Fraser (director), 1976 + BFI NFTVA, current affairs footage + BFI NFTVA, documentary footage SOUND BL NSA, documentary recordings + BL NSA, performance recordings
Likenesses  R. C. Guthrie, oils, c.1946, NPG · Y. Karsh, bromide print, 1954, NPG · C. Beaton, bromide print, 1940-49, NPG · C. Lucas, bromide fibre print, 1947, NPG · R. Westwood, cibachrome print, 1948, NPG · photographs, 1943-67, Hult. Arch., London · photographs, 1942-67, Getty Images, London, Popperfoto · photographs, 1948-50, Getty Images, London, Time and Life pictures · photographs, 1954-67, Getty Images, London, Popperfoto · photographs, Photoshot, London · photographs, 1948-91, PA Photos, London · photographs, 1947-94, Rex Features, London · photograph, 1957, Camera Press, London · A. Arikha, oils, 1993, Scot. NPG · obituary photographs · photographs, repro. in www.ballerinagallery.com · Baron, photograph, 1948, Hult. Arch., London [see illus.] · M. Bishop, drawing, repro. in Harpers and Queen (Nov 1985), 33 · Sir W. R. Flint, red chalk; Christie's, 24 Sep 1992 · photograph, Kobal Collection, London; repro. in J. Kobal and J. Russell Taylor, Portraits of the British cinema, 60 glorious years 1925 - 1985 (1985) · J. Bown, photograph, repro. in J. Bown, Women of consequence (1986) · P. Sayer, photograph, repro. in Sunday Express (4 Oct 1981) · J. Player, photograph, repro. in New York Times (10 Jan 1988)
Wealth at death  £398,661: probate, 11 Jan 2007, CGPLA Eng. & Wales