Moira Shearer (1926–2006). British ballerina and actress

Moira Shearer was born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1926. From 1931 to 1936 she lived in what was Northern Rhodesia, where she began her ballet training. She then studied under Flora Fairbairn and at the Legat School. In 1940, she went to Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, but it was with International Ballet that she made her professional debut in 1941. In 1942 she returned to the Sadler’s Wells School and also joined the company in the same year. In 1943 she created the role of Pride in Frederick Ashton’s The Quest and became a leading dancer in 1944. While with Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Shearer was one of the originals dancers Ashton’s Symphonic Variations and also created the title role in his Cinderella. Shearer was also noted for her performance in George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial.

Much admired as a ballerina, dancing all the main roles, it was, however, as Victoria Page in the Powell and Pressburger film The Red Shoes that Shearer became internationally famous. She also appeared in the film The Tales of Hoffmann in 1951, which again drew on her balletic magic. She stepped down from Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1952 to devote herself to acting on stage and in films, and also for occasional writing and lecturing. She did, though, return briefly to dance in 1987, as the mother in Gillian Lynne’s A Simple Man for BBC Television in 1987. Moira Shearer married the writer and television journalist Ludovic Kennedy in 1950, and she died in Oxford in 2006.