Pearl Argyle (1910–1947). South African dancer

Pearl Argyle was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, but little is known about her life until she appeared in London in the early 1920s. She must have had some ballet training in South Africa because she was good enough to enrol both with the famous Russian teacher Nicholas Legat and also with Marie Rambert’s school. She performed with Rambert’s group of student dancers, which formed the basis of Ballet Rambert, and also with The Ballet Club and The Camargo Society.

Argyle danced many leading roles for Ballet Rambert; some created for her by Rambert, Ninette de Valois, Andrée Howard and most especially Frederick Ashton. Ashton was a leading light of Ballet Rambert when Argyle was a student, both as a dancer and choreographer. He was enthralled by her beauty and radiant grace, and she became an early muse for him.

The first years of the 1930s were extremely busy ones for Argyle. Her original ties continued, but she also danced in Ballyhoo, a revue at London’s Comedy Theatre in dances by Ashton; she joined Balanchine’s Les Ballets 1933, a short-lived venture, and danced sporadically, until 1938, with the Vic-Wells Ballet, creating several important ballets for both Ashton and de Valois. During all this time she was also making films at studios around London and it was in this genre that her future life focused.

In 1936 she married the German film director Curtis (Kurt) Bernhardt, with whom she had a son in 1937. They all went to the United States of America in 1939 where Argyle pursued her film and stage career. She died in 1947 in New York and is buried in California.

Pearl Argyle’s story is extraordinary, and certainly puts into question the idea that all women of her time were downtrodden and forced into restricted lives. She arrived in London from thousands of miles away, trained and joined several companies, inspired great choreographers, and appeared in films and on stage. While the times were not easy, especially in the arts, Argyle was one of a group of fiercely independent people who fully believed in what they were doing and made their own choices to fulfil and organise their own destinies.