OTD in early British television: 11 August 1939
John Wyver writes: My fascination with the ballet stars who appeared on early television continues. This time, I am featuring a performance just before the war by the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo star Irina Baronova. Late evening on Friday 11 August 1939 a recital produced by Philip Bate and titled Pas Seul showcased Baronova dancing ‘Traumes Wirren’ to Schumann and, in a duet with Boris Runanin, ‘Unter Donner und Blitz’ to Strauss.
Baronova was still only 20 years old, but she was known as one of legendary trio of ‘baby ballerinas’, along with Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska, who were so-christened in 1932 by the English critic Arnold Haskell.
Per Wikipedia:
Children of the Russian exile community in Paris, established after the revolution of 1917, the three girls were discovered by George Balanchine in 1931 in the studios of two former ballerinas of the Russian Imperial Ballet. Baronova and Toumanova were pupils of Olga Preobrajenska; Riabouchinska was a protégée of Mathilde Kschessinska.
Impressed by their remarkable talent, and cognizant that each of them had had some performing experience, Balanchine chose them to dance in a new company that was then being formed by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil and of which he was to be chief choreographer, Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
Baronova’s first principal role was Odette in Swan Lake, partnered by Anton Dolin, which she performed at 14 years old. She was one of the dancers who appeared in the 1937 rehearsal broadcast by Colonel Wassily de Basil’s company, and she was also interviewed that year in Picture Page.
But that was also the year, at the age of 17, that she eloped with Jerry Sevastianov. They married two years later in Sydney, Australia, and she joined the Ballet Theatre in the USA, under the patronage of Sol Hurok. She and Sevastianov divorced, and Baronova returned to the UK where she appeared in a small number of wartime films.
Wikipedia continues the remarkable story of her life:
In 1946, she met the agent Cecil Tennant [whose clients included Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud], who asked her to marry him with the condition that she gave up ballet; she agreed and retired… Baronova and Tennant had three children, including Victoria. Through Victoria, she became the mother-in-law of Steve Martin…
In 1967, Cecil Tennant was killed in a car accident, and Baronova moved to Switzerland. Later, she remarried her first husband, Jerry Sevastianov, who died in 1974.
She remained active as a teacher almost right up to her death in 2008.
[OTD post no. 237; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication on 8 January 2026 of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain, which can now be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury here.]
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