Moira Shearer, star of "The Red Shoes", dead at 80

[deb...@comcast.net]

Red Shoes ballerina Shearer dies BBC

Shearer played a woman who could not stop dancing in The Red Shoes
Ballet dancer Moira Shearer, who starred in movie The Red Shoes, has
died aged 80.
The Scottish dancer died in an Oxford hospital on Tuesday, her
broadcaster husband Ludovic Kennedy said.

"She was full of spirit and also she was very beautiful," he said. "She
moved wonderfully gracefully as you would expect of a ballet dancer."

Kennedy said Shearer, whom he married in 1950, gradually become weaker
after her birthday in January.

Movie fairytale

Born in Dunfermline in 1926, Shearer became a member of the Sadler's
Wells Ballet school from the age of 14.

By 1946 she was proficient enough to dance a leading role in Les
Sylphides and to play Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty.

In 1948 she starred in classic Hollywood movie The Red Shoes, based on
a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about a pair of bewitched red shoes
that compelled the wearer to dance until she died.

Despite her acclaimed performance in The Red Shoes, Shearer took on
only a few further movie roles, preferring professional dance to
acting.

In 1949 she was a member of the Sadler's Wells Ballet as it made its
first US appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House and subsequently
toured the eastern United States and Canada.

Alternating in principal roles with prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn,
Shearer was acclaimed by critics for her "wonderful skill and
precision".

Later roles in films such as 1955's The Man Who Loved Redheads and
1960's Peeping Tom failed to match Shearer's iconic performance in The
Red Shoes.

[J. Eric Durbin]

On 1 Feb 2006 10:08:24 -0800, deb...@comcast.net wrote:

>Red Shoes ballerina Shearer dies BBC
>
>Shearer played a woman who could not stop dancing in The Red Shoes
>Ballet dancer Moira Shearer, who starred in movie The Red Shoes, has
>died aged 80.

>The Scottish dancer died in an Oxford hospital on Tuesday, her
>broadcaster husband Ludovic Kennedy said.

Do any of our British contributors no the backround of the name
"Ludovic"? I ask because I watched the annual Goodwood Legends races
and one of the drivers is Ludovic Lindsay. Not a common first name, I
assume.

[Louis Epstein]

J. Eric Durbin <zyz...@plenipotentiary.com.invalid> wrote:

In my brief study of Latin I was told that the Latin version of my
name was Ludovicus,the teacher pronounced it Loo-DOW-ah-cuss.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[spi...@hotmail.com]

A brief search using a reputable search engine reveals that "Ludovic"
is the English form of a Gaelic name meaning "devotee of the lord".

[robertc...@yahoo.com]

deb...@comcast.net wrote:
> Red Shoes ballerina Shearer dies BBC
>
> Shearer played a woman who could not stop dancing in The Red Shoes
> Ballet dancer Moira Shearer, who starred in movie The Red Shoes, has
> died aged 80.
> The Scottish dancer died in an Oxford hospital on Tuesday, her
> broadcaster husband Ludovic Kennedy said.
>

I have long known this announcement was in the offing, and I am very
sad to read it here. When I first saw _The Red Shoes_, lo these many
years ago, I fell in love with Miss Shearer, who seemed to me the
personification of grace and beauty. I have been in love with her ever
since. (A goodly number of my girlfriends have been petite redheads,
and I suspect that started because of MS.)

It's too bad that Moira Shearer's experience in making _The Red Shoes_
was so unpleasant; she might otherwise have made more films. As it
was, she felt that it was an unwarranted interruption in her stage
career; and she and Michael Powell were at loggerheads about nearly
everything that happened on the set. The film was, of course, a huge
international hit, and Moira inspired several generations of young
girls to put on the slippers and take to the stage. In that way, she
had a much greater influence on the world of ballet than she could have
otherwise. Meanwhile, we have images of Moira moving and dancing always
with us now.

I have always enjoyed movies about artists, and _The Red Shoes_ is one
of the most Romantic ever made. It poses the question of whether one
will have, in Yeats's terms, "perfection of the life or of the art."
The heroine, Vicky Page, is torn between her love for a young composer
and her desire to dance for the Ballet Lermontov. The tension between
her desires drives her toward tragedy--as one would expect of a
Romantic movie. Moira brought such conviction to the role that it is
almost impossible to think of her and Vicky Page as separate. But that
is _my_ Romanticism showing.

Good-bye, dear Moira. I am so glad you were with us!

.

[robertc...@yahoo.com]

Photos of Moira Shearer and material about and from her most famous
film, _The Red Shoes_.:

http://balletbookstore.com/ballerina/pic/shear02.jpg

http://www.balletto.net/redazione/immagini/351D.jpg

http://powell.ifrance.com/powell/hoffman2.gif

Some Shots from "The Red Shoes"

http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/cinema/CinemaPics/Vicky.jpg

http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/cinema/redshoes.html

http://images.qianlong.com/mmsource/image/2003-7-23/Moira-Shearer.jpg

With James Mason, in another movie, "The Story of Three Loves":

http://www.thegreatescapeonline.com/nonmuze/images/MOVIE_TVFOTOPHOTO03303PHOTOBC.jpg
t; .

[Louis Epstein]

spi...@hotmail.com wrote:
: A brief search using a reputable search engine reveals that "Ludovic"

: is the English form of a Gaelic name meaning "devotee of the lord".

:

And then there's the Germanic "Ludwig".

But I suspect they all have a common Indo-European origin.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Does anyone know of a film version of the Andersen story with the
original plot AND ending? I saw the modernized animated 1990 version,
but that's hardly the same thing - anyway, the ending is pretty happy,
IIRC. The 1983 version, as described by a viewer at the IMDb, sounds
interesting, but not enough details were given. I also saw a
10-minute(?) cartoon of it in the 1970s (I think) but that had a happy
ending.

Also, here's an old post of mine from r.a.b.c.:

I was reading "The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales," edited by Maria
Tatar, and
in the article on Andersen at the end, Maurice Sendak is quoted as
follows: " 'The Red
Shoes' is the worst of the lot. The arbitrary torments Andersen
inflicts on
Karen are sadistic and distasteful in the extreme and the tale's
Christian
sentiment rings false."

Funny thing is, 1) Sendak isn't exactly one to shy from violence, even
if the
kids in his books never get maimed or die, IIRC, 2) sad/painful stories
aren't
exactly uncommon in Northern Europe, and 3) "The Red Shoes" was
selected by
Harold Bloom as one of the most-preferred stories for his book "Stories
and
Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages." (Why he didn't
change
that to something much more appealing like "Intelligent Stories for
Children of
All Ages" is beyond me.)

Would anyone like to speculate as to why Sendak feels that " the tale's

Christian sentiment rings false"?

Lenona.

P.S. Walter Crane's version of "Cinderella" is also at the back of
Tatar's
book, with a very amusing and (somewhat) original ending!