Nora Kaye

Nora Kaye was called the Duse of the dance, made her name in a ballet about sexual terror, and gave up performing to produce films. She was born Nora Koreff in New York to Russian parents, trained at the Metropolitan Opera school and with Fokine and Vaganova-trained teachers, and spent years in the corps at Ballet Theatre with nothing much happening. Antony Tudor made Pillar of Fire on her in 1942: Hagar, a woman who believes she has lost the man she loves to her younger sister and gives herself to a stranger out of despair. It was not a role that existed in ballet before - interior, sexual, unresolved - and she was recalled twenty-six times on the first night. She created leads for Tudor, Robbins and de Mille, danced the classics well enough to hold them, and was one of the first American ballerinas to be a genuine draw in her own country. She married the director Herbert Ross in 1959, stopped dancing in 1961, and produced or co-produced his films for twenty-five years, including The Turning Point in 1977, which is about a dancer's choice between a career and a family and drew heavily on what she knew. Tudor is said to have driven her through rehearsals for Pillar of Fire with a cruelty other dancers found hard to watch. She danced with Balanchine s company briefly in the 1950s. The Turning Point was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won none, which is still a record. She was married briefly to the violinist Isaac Stern before Ross.

• Lived: 1920 CE – 1987 CE
• Nationality: American
• Roles: artist