Beryl Grey (1927–2022). British ballerina and director

Beryl Grey (originally Beryl Groom) was born in 1927 in Highgate, London. She began her ballet training at the age of four and was taught by Madeleine Sharp and Phyllis Bedells. At the age of ten, having passed all the Royal Academy of Dance examinations it was possible for her to take, she entered the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. When she was 14, she joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, and was almost immediately taking leading roles. She danced a full-length Swan Lake on her 15th birthday, Giselle in 1944 and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty in 1946. In addition, she danced in new creations by Frederick Ashton, including Cinderella and Birthday Offering, and in Léonide Massine’s Donald of the Burthens. Grey was also a noted interpreter of the Black Queen in Ninette de Valois’ Checkmate.

In 1957, Grey resigned from The Royal Ballet (as the Sadler’s Wells Ballet had become in 1956) and embarked on a new career as an international guest ballerina, including appearances with The Royal Ballet and London Festival Ballet. In 1957 and 1958 she was a guest artist in Leningrad with the Kirov Ballet, at the Bolshoi in Moscow and in Tbilisi, the first British dancer to be so honoured. In 1964 she became the first western guest artist to appear with the Peking Ballet and the Shanghai Company.

From 1968 until 1979 Grey was the artistic director of London Festival Ballet. She was president of English National Ballet, president of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dance, among many other honours, including five honorary doctorates and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the Royal Academy of Dance (in 1997). In 2016 she received the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. She was appointed CBE in 1973, DBE in 1988 and in 2017 was made a Companion of Honour (C.H) for services to dance. Beryl Grey died in 2022.