Fonteyn's Pearls

The Royal Alexandra Theatre, November 1949

I am so excited. I am six and I am going to the ballet! Since I was three I have been dancing. My first appearance on stage is still imprinted on my memory, the lights, the thrill of feeling the audience responding. Now I am going to see a famous ballerina named Margot Fonteyn! My sister and I are wearing our identical dresses, mine blue satin with lace collar, hers green satin. Our mother sewed them for a wedding on her Singer sewing machine. This is the first time we are allowed to wear our patent leather shoes with straps since the wedding. It is a very special occasion.

The theatre is elegant, with red velvet seats. Because my father knows one of the dancers we have very good seats. The ballet is Giselle. I read in the program that it is the story of a much beloved village girl who has a boyfriend, but she falls in love with a prince, who is bored and attracted to her innocence.

The eldest, I am sitting beside my father, feeling very grown up, watching the ballet unfold in front of me. My father has explained the story to me. The beautiful dancer is acting out a scene where she finds out the prince that she fell in love with (while he was disguised) is already engaged to a noblewoman. He was just toying with her because he was bored and her innocence seemed attractive. When her friend tells her the truth, she becomes distraught and overwhelmed. Her huge brown eyes are wild, her long black hair disheveled. She is out of her mind with pain and grief. She takes the pearls that the prince gave her off her neck, and flings them across the stage.

I can still hear the pearls skidding across the stage as Margot writhes in agony and drops dead of a broken heart, while her mother hovers over her, seeing her prophetic vision of her daughter dancing by moonlight with the Willis (those who die before their wedding night) in long white gowns. A perfectly tragic romantic fairy tale, it left an indelible impression on my young heart and mind.

After the performance, the owner of the theatre, Mr. Rollo May, shows my father and my sister and I around the theatre. He takes us into the lighting booth, lets us look through coloured gels at the postage stamp of a stage below. Then we are taken backstage to the dancers dressing rooms. Astonished, I see the beautiful red-headed dancer Moira Shearer, who I saw on the movie screen in The Red Shoes. She is sitting in front of a lit mirror surrounded by a group of dancers. Two of them are men. One, handsome and dark, is Leslie Edwards. The other, Robert Helpman, is still in makeup and costume while he sits cutting Moira's hair. He is my father's friend, who danced as the partner of Margot Fonteyn. All of them are welcoming him. They call him "Fitz." Apparently he travelled with Robert's brother, Max Helpman in the nineteen thirties as Business Manager for a n Autstralian Vaudeville company called Williamson's. He was a great poker player, and earned his passage to London playing poker. He arrived in 1930 and found himself in a silent movie at Gainsborough studios. He found his way into the theatre scene in the East End of London and had a wildly romantic time, and spent his time surrounded by flapper actresses and famous people who adoptd "Jack" and fondly called him "Fitz." And now, nineteen years later, they are reunited. My sister and I watch the whole scene, fascinated.

I am spellbound as clumps of bright blood red hair fall to the floor as they chat and laugh. They are all best of friends, Leslie Edwards, tall, dark and handsome, Pamela May, beautiful and graceful, but none of them as stunning as Margot Fonteyn. She radiates joy, smiles at us graciously, and asks us how old we are. My sister answers boldly that she is four, and then turns the question back on her. "How old are you?" She is amused, but does not answer.
My father goes to call my mother to ask her to have dinner ready. The Sadler's Wells principal dancers are coming for dinner!