Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer King, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 – 31 January 2006), was an internationally renowned Scottish ballet dancer and actress. She is best remembered for her performances in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948) and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960).

Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer in 1954
Born	Moira Shearer King 17 January 1926 Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Died	31 January 2006 (aged 80) Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Other names	Lady Kennedy
Years active	1938–1987
Spouse(s)	Sir Ludovic Kennedy ​ ​ (m. 1950; her death 2006)​
Children	4

Early life

She was born Moira Shearer King at Morton Lodge in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the only child of civil engineer Harold Charles King and Margaret Crawford Reid, née Shearer.[1] In 1931 her family moved to Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, where her father worked as a civil engineer and where she received her first dancing training under a former pupil of Enrico Cecchetti.[2] She returned to Britain in 1936 and trained with Flora Fairbairn in London for a few months before she was accepted as a pupil by the Russian teacher Nicholas Legat.[2] At his studio she met Mona Inglesby[3] who gave Shearer a part in her new ballet Endymion, presented at an all star matinee at the Cambridge Theatre in 1938.[4] After three years with Legat, she joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. After the outbreak of World War II, her parents took her to live in Scotland.[2] She joined Mona Inglesby's International Ballet[5] for its 1941 provincial tour and West End season before moving on to Sadler's Wells in 1942.

Film career

Shearer first came to the public's attention as Posy Fossil in the advertisements for the Noel Streatfeild book Ballet Shoes while she was training under Flora Fairbairn, a good friend of Streatfeild's.

She achieved international success with her first film role as Victoria Page in the Powell and Pressburger ballet-themed film The Red Shoes, (1948).[6] Even her hair matched the titular footwear, and the role and film were so powerful that although she went on to star in other films and worked as a dancer for many decades, she is primarily known for playing "Vicky".

Shearer retired from ballet in 1953, but she continued to act, appearing as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the 1954 Edinburgh Festival. She worked again for Powell in the films The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) and Peeping Tom (1960), which was controversial at the time of release and damaged Powell's own career.

In 1972, she was chosen by the BBC to present the Eurovision Song Contest when it was staged at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.[7] She also wrote for The Daily Telegraph newspaper and gave talks on ballet worldwide.

The choreographer Gillian Lynne persuaded her to return to ballet in 1987 to play L. S. Lowry's mother in A Simple Man for the BBC.

Personal life

In 1950, Moira Shearer married journalist and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy. They were married in the Chapel Royal in London's Hampton Court Palace.[6][8] She and Kennedy had a son, Alastair, and three daughters, Ailsa, Rachel, and Fiona. Shearer died at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, England at the age of 80.[9]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1948	The Red Shoes	Victoria Page
1951	The Tales of Hoffmann	Stella / Olympia
1953	The Story of Three Loves	Paula Woodward	(segment "The Jealous Lover")
1955	The Man Who Loved Redheads	Sylvia / Daphne / Olga / Colette
1960	Peeping Tom	Vivian
1961	Black Tights	Roxane
1987	A Simple Man	Mother	TV movie, final film role

See also

• List of Eurovision Song Contest presenters

References

1. Debra Craine; Judith Mackrell (2010). The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Oxford University Press. pp. 408–. ISBN 978-0-19-956344-9.
2. Fisher, Hugh (1952). "Moira Shearer". Dancers of To-day. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
3. Mona Inglesby with Kay Hunter (2008). "Ballet in the Blitz". Groundnut Publishing. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. Handley-Taylor, Geoffrey (1947). "Mona Inglesby, Ballerina and Choreographer". Vawser and Wiles. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
5. "Mona Inglesby". The Independent. London. 13 October 2006. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
6. Percival, John. "Shearer, Moira". ODNB. OUP. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
7. O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007. ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3.
8. "Moira of the Red Shoes". Photoplay. 1950.
9. Obituary in The New York Times, 2 February 2006. Retrieved 11 October 2014.

External links

• Moira Shearer at IMDb
• Moira Shearer at the TCM Movie Database
• Moira Shearer at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Ballerina Gallery – Moira Shearer
• BBC Obituary of Moira Shearer
• "The Daily Telegraph" Obituary of Moira Shearer
• The Times Online obituary of Moira Shearer
• Moira Shearer at Find a Grave