Today is the birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, born Margaret Hookham in Reigate, Surrey in 1919 (she died in Panama City, Panama in 1991). Star of the Royal Ballet (Sadler's Wells when she began), Fonteyn was an inspiration to Sir Frederick Ashton and also worked with Roland Petit and Martha Graham and danced with Rudolph Nureyev.
But others have chronicled her life better than I can:
Margot Fonteyn Wikipedia entry
Margot Fonteyn bio from ballet.co
In her article for the Celebrity Series, dance writer Christine Temin wrote of Fonteyn:
"In her Autobiography Margot Fonteyn tells of the food shortages that made it difficult for the dancers to keep performing six nights and three matinees a week – a crushing schedule even if there’s plenty to eat. Ballet fans would sacrifice their own rations, presenting them to the dancers at the stage door. There was such demand for ballet that there were three performances on Saturdays. They had to run virtually non-stop, Fonteyn writes, 'in order to finish early enough for the public to reach home before the bombs fell.'" Read the complete article.
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