MARGOT Fonteyn, the prima ballerina of her time and one of the greatest dancers of all time, died yesterday in hospital in Panama City, aged 71.
A spokeswoman at Covent Garden said everyone in the Royal Ballet╒s headquarters there was saddened at the news. Last night the audience at the Royal Opera House stood in silence to remember her many triumphs on its stage.
Dame Margot was long associated with the choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton and the Sadler╒s Wells Ballet, and with Rudolf Nureyev. She is survived by her teacher, Dame Ninette de Valois, aged 92, and by the dancer whom she succeeded as prima ballerina at Sadler╒s Wells, Dame Alicia Markova, aged 80.
The director of the Royal Ballet, Anthony Dowell, called Dame Margot ╥a guiding light and a shining example for generations of Royal Ballet dancers; she was the complete professional, a true and glamorous star both on and off the stage, and an inspired and unique artist.╙
Dame Ninette said she was the inspiration of the English ballet. ╥It is something that cannot fade. It will live to inspire our young generation and leave with those of the older generation a memory that will never die.╙
Dame Margot last visited London in May, in ill health and with an artificial hip, but still beautiful, for a gala of Romeo and Juliet at her beloved Covent Garden.
Nureyev danced, and she was serenaded by Placido Domingo. The house could have been sold out 10 times over, and the night raised ú250,000.
The money was needed because she retired at 60 with no pension, and spent all her savings nursing her politician husband, Roberto Arias, on their Panamanian farm for 25 years after he survived an assassination attempt. After his death she insisted on staying at the ranch.
Born Peggy Hookham in Reigate, Surrey, in 1919, Dame Margot studied ballet as a child in Shanghai, where her father╒s engineering work took the family. She was 14 when Dame Ninette, then director of the Vic-Wells Ballet School, spotted her. By the age of 16 she had changed her name and was dancing principal roles.
At 17 as the company╒s prima ballerina she won ecstatic reviews for her first Giselle. She danced all the great classical roles with the company, and was its acknowledged star when it moved to Covent Garden in 1946.
The most glittering stage of her career began at an age when most dancers consider retirement. Nureyev defected to the West, aged 22, and Dame Margot, at 42, became his partner. Once, in Vienna, they took 89 curtain calls.
She last danced in public in 1986, taking the small part of the Queen Mother in Sleeping Beauty for two nights in Florida with the Royal Ballet. ╥It╒s not death I╒m afraid of. It╒s living too long,╙ she said after her husband╒s death.
