Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer (b.1926)
British ballet dancer and actress.
In the 1940s Moira Shearer danced all
the major classical ballet roles at Covent Garden and on American tours.
She reached a wider public when she starred in the highly successful Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger film The Red Shoes (1948).
Born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, she attended Dunfermline High
School and went on to study ballet at the Mayfair School and the Nicolas
Legat Studio. In 1942 she joined London's Sadler's Wells Ballet, dancing
her first role in The Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden in 1946.
As a ballet dancer, she toured the United States with the Sadler's Wells
Ballet in 1949 and 1950-51. In 1955 she joined the Bristol Old Vic company
as an actress, playing many leading roles there and at the London Old Vic,
including the title character in George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara. She
has also appeared on TV, lectured in America on the history of ballet, and
performed regularly with her husband, the writer and broadcaster Sir Ludovic
Kennedy.
A regular reviewer for London newspapers, Lady Kennedy also wrote "Balletmaster:
A Dancer's View of George Balanchine" (1986).
The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, © Market House Books
Ltd
1998
