Who was Margot Fonteyn? Royal Ballet prima ballerina and partner of Rudolf Nureyev – here’s what we know
Her career lasted for more than four decades, and Margot was Strictly judge Darcey Bussell's mentor
DAME Margot Fonteyn is the spellbinding dancer every British ballerina has aspired to be.
Margot kept dancing into her 60s, eclipsing younger dancers long after most ballerinas retired, but still died penniless and alone at the age of 71.
Here we tell you everything you need to know about the legendary dancer, and her tumultuous private life.
Where was Margot Fonteyn born?
Originally called Margaret Evelyn Hookham, Margot was born in Reigate, Surrey, in 1919.
Margot had a British father and half-Irish, half-Brazilian mother.
Her grandad was Brazilian industrialist Antonio Fontes, whose name Margot adapted into the surname 'Fonteyn' - which her brother Felix also adopted.
Margot and Felix started ballet classes when she was four.
At the age of eight, Margot made the long journey to China with her mum and dad, who was working at a tobacco company there, while Felix remained at school.
Margot lived in TianJin and Shanghai for six years - studying ballet with Russian teacher George Goncharov.
When she was 14, her mum moved to Ealing, west London, to pursue Margot's ballet career.
Her dad remained in Shanghai, and was captured and imprisoned by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
How did Margot Fonteyn become a ballerina?
After returning to London, Margot joined the Vic-Wells Ballet School, which is now the Royal Ballet School.
By the time she was 20, Margot had been appointed Prima Ballerina - and performed the lead role in Giselle, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.
When the Royal Ballet toured the United States in 1949, Margot became an instant celebrity.
Margot appeared on the front cover of Time magazine in 1949, she was made a dame in 1956, and chancellor of the University of Durham from 1981 to 1990.
She was also one of five Women of Achievement selected for a set of British stamps issued in August 1996, while a statue stands tribute in her home town of Reigate.
Margot was remembered with a blue plaque in 2016.
Margot's on-stage partners included Robert Helpmann and Michael Somes.
But her greatest artistic partnership came at the age of 42 and at a time when many people, including the head of the Royal Ballet, Ninette de Valois, thought she was going to retire.
When did Margot Fonteyn start dancing with Rudolf Nureyev?
In 1961, Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the west and the pair first performed together, in Giselle, on 21 February 1962 - when he was 24 and Margot 42.
Their chemistry was palpable and the pair continued to be professional partners, and great friends off-stage, until Margot's retirement in 1979 - at the age of 61.
Sir Frederick Ashton choreographed Marguerite and Armand for them, and the couple debuted Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet.
The pair appeared on screen in Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Les Sylphides and Le Corsaire Pas de Deux. Margot had previously starred in The Nutcracker.
Margot always denied that the pair had a physical or romantic relationship, although Rudi insisted they did.
The pair remained close even after Margot moved to a Panama cattle farm with her husband - and are still the most famous ballet partnership of all time.
When Margot was diagnosed with cancer, which eventually became fatal fatal, Rudi paid her medical bills.
Who was Margot Fonteyn's husband?
Margot married Dr Roberto Arias, a Panamanian diplomat to London, in 1955 - but the relationship was rocky because of Tito's affairs.
She previously had a long affair with married composer Constant Lambert, only for him to marry someone else after his divorce.
Roberto was shot by a rival politician in 1964, leaving him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life.
Dancer Darcey Bussel recently told the Telegraph: "Once married, Margot funded Tito’s political ambitions, and that meant she had to carry on dancing, putting incredible strain on her body.
"As her biographer Meredith Daneman says, Margot 'didn’t mean to be an old ballerina'.
"But when Tito was shot by a rival in 1964 and paralysed from the neck down, it was Margot who paid for his expensive medical bills.
"All of which meant that by the end of her long career, all the money she had earned was gone."
Arias passed away in 1989, and Margot died in a hospital in Panama City two years later - poor but not, as some might imagine, unhappy.
Darcey explained: "When we think about Margot, we assume that her most significant partnership was with Rudolf Nureyev. It wasn’t.
"For Margot, the partnership that mattered most in her life was with her husband.
"And that’s why, when I placed a rose on her tombstone, it wasn’t in Westminster Abbey or a lovely churchyard in rural England, but in a crypt in Panama.
"That’s where she wanted to be buried, next to Tito."
When did Margot Fonteyn work with Darcey Bussell?
Most people today know Darcey Bussell for her judging role on Strictly Come Dancing but she, along with Margot, is one of the most famous British ballerinas of all time.
Darcey was actually mentored by Margot very early in her career, in 1990, when she was rehearsing for the role of Odette, in Swan Lake, at the Royal Ballet.
The Strictly judge told the Telegraph: "Margot gave me advice that stayed with me throughout my career.
"She impressed upon me that my job as a ballerina was, above all, story-telling - that every step I executed shouldn’t be focused on technique, but on telling the story.
"That’s how Margot made her audiences care – by drawing them into her story with every single movement."
She added: "For all the iconic status she enjoyed in the world of ballet, when I met Margot in 1990 her real life could not have been further from the glamour of her stage career.
"Because, as well as coaching me, Margot was in London to attend a royal fundraising gala to raise much-needed money for her retirement in Panama.
"After a dazzling and unbelievably long career, Dame Margot had been living in poverty, alone and abroad. How had Britain’s greatest ballerina come to this?"
Darcy Bussell: Looking for Margot is on BBC1 at 10.45pm tonight (20 December).
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