Uploaded April 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
This is a pas de deux performed by Vera Zorina and Charles Laskey.
It was choreographed by Zorina’s husband, George Balanchine whom she was married to from 1938 to 1946. The sequence appeared in the 1939 Hollywood film ‘On Your Toes’.
Born of German and Norwegian parentage, Zorina was trained by Olga Preobrajenska and Nicholas Legat and debuted at the age of twelve in Max Reinhardt’s famed ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ (1935).
As well as starring Ballets Russes principal dancer Nini Theilade, the cast of the movie included James Cagney (Bottom), Dick Powell (Lysander), Joe E. Brown (Flute), Jean Muir (Helena), Hugh Herbert (Snout), Ian Hunter (Theseus), Frank McHugh (Quince), Victor Jory (Oberon), Olivia de Havilland (Hermia), Ross Alexander (Demetrius), Verree Teasdale (Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons), Anita Louise (Titania), Mickey Rooney (Puck), Arthur Treacher (Ninny's Tomb), Billy Barty (Mustard Seed), Kenneth Anger (Changeling Prince), and Angelo Rossitto (Gnome)!
Before going to Hollywood in 1938 and working on Broadway, Zorina had joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1933.
In the 1970s, she was director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. She worked as an adviser at the Lincoln Center and for several seasons directed operas at the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico.
She published her autobiography ‘Zorina’ in 1986. (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux).
This is a pas de deux performed by Vera Zorina and Charles Laskey.
It was choreographed by Zorina’s husband, George Balanchine whom she was married to from 1938 to 1946. The sequence appeared in the 1939 Hollywood film ‘On Your Toes’.
Born of German and Norwegian parentage, Zorina was trained by Olga Preobrajenska and Nicholas Legat and debuted at the age of twelve in Max Reinhardt’s famed ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ (1935).
As well as starring Ballets Russes principal dancer Nini Theilade, the cast of the movie included James Cagney (Bottom), Dick Powell (Lysander), Joe E. Brown (Flute), Jean Muir (Helena), Hugh Herbert (Snout), Ian Hunter (Theseus), Frank McHugh (Quince), Victor Jory (Oberon), Olivia de Havilland (Hermia), Ross Alexander (Demetrius), Verree Teasdale (Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons), Anita Louise (Titania), Mickey Rooney (Puck), Arthur Treacher (Ninny's Tomb), Billy Barty (Mustard Seed), Kenneth Anger (Changeling Prince), and Angelo Rossitto (Gnome)!
Before going to Hollywood in 1938 and working on Broadway, Zorina had joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1933.
In the 1970s, she was director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. She worked as an adviser at the Lincoln Center and for several seasons directed operas at the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico.
She published her autobiography ‘Zorina’ in 1986. (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux).
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