Submitted by
Billy Faulkner
What did Moira think of 'The Red Shoes'?
From The New York Times, January 10, 1988
MENTION THE NAME Moira Shearer and movie buffs will instantly smile and say:
''Ah, yes! The gorgeous redhead in 'The Red Shoes' -the best ballet film ever made!''
But mention ''The Red Shoes'' to Moira Shearer and she'll say: ''To be constantly associated with that one film is really quite dismaying. It's as though I'd done nothing else in my life. I mean, it's odd, when you're 61, to be haunted by something you've done when you were 21!''
And yet, ''The Red Shoes,'' this year celebrating its 40th anniversary, remains a staple of revival houses the world over.
Completed in England and on location in Monte Carlo in 1947 and released the following year, this early Technicolor film, based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, was written and directed by Michael Powell in association with Emeric Pressburger. As the first film of its kind, it was given balletic stature and credibility by the presence of the eminent choreographer Leonide Massine as dancer, and the Australian-born actor/dancer Robert Helpmann as choreographer. Ms. Shearer was herself a rising young member of London's Sadler's Wells Ballet, which would eventually become the Royal Ballet.
When ''The Red Shoes'' opened in London and later in New York, it was an instant success with critics and audiences alike. For Ms. Shearer, it was the turning point of her life.
While meeting recently with Moira Shearer, time seemed as though it had stood still. Ravishly pretty, her soft red hair still worn as one remembered it in ''The Red Shoes,'' she offered the image of a dancer's tensile fragility and insouciance. Slim, trim and elegant, the only change was the sound of her voice, no longer that of the tremulous young dancer in the film, but the rich and cultivated voice of an actress, which Ms. Shearer became soon after she retired from the ballet stage.
Indeed, following ''The Red Shoes,'' Ms. Shearer made five films in which she danced and acted with distinction, including ''The Tales of Hoffmann,'' again for Powell and Pressburger, and ''Black Tights,'' a ballet film based on works by the choreographer Roland Petit.
On the London stage, Ms. Shearer appeared as Sally Bowles in John Van Druten's ''I Am a Camera'' and as Sabina in Thornton Wilder's ''Skin of Our Teeth.'' Among other plays, she excelled in Restoration comedies. During the 1970's, she lectured on dance throughout Britain and the United States. Last spring, Ms. Shearer's first book, ''Ballet Master: A Dancer's View of George Balanchine,'' was published in America by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
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In 1949, Moira Shearer married the noted British journalist and television commentator Ludovic Kennedy. The couple are the parents of four children - three girls and one boy -ranging in ages from 35 to 24. There is no question but that Ms. Shearer has done a lot of living and working since ''The Red Shoes'' - the movie, as she put it, ''I never wanted to make.''
''I was happily dancing with the Sadler's Wells Ballet and just beginning to 'come up' with the company,'' she began. ''It was 1946, just after the war, and Margot Fonteyn, our prima ballerina, was dancing in absolutely everything! Of course, she couldn't do every single performance of 'Swan Lake' or 'Sleeping Beauty,' so some of us got the chance to dance those roles. Well, the film director, Michael Powell, must have come to Covent Garden and seen me in one of those ballets, because I received a letter from him asking me to meet him about a film project. We met and he handed me the script of 'The Red Shoes.' He was sure I'd jump at the chance to play the leading girl. I took the script home, read it and didn't like it at all.
''I told Mr. Powell, as politely as I could, that I didn't want to do this, and returned his script. I just thought the story was silly and banal. But he kept insisting. Finally, he went away saying, 'I shall go around the world and find the perfect dancer for this part.' I was delighted. Well, in 1947, Powell was back bombarding me with letters. By this time, Leonide Massine and Robert Helpmann were going to be involved in the movie, and I felt that with those names Powell would at least get the balletic things right. Still, I held out, because I simply didn't like the story.
''But there was no stopping Powell. He badgered and badgered. Finally, Ninette de Valois, our ballet company director, sent for me and said, 'Will you please make this movie and get this man Powell off our backs. He's driving us mad, constantly hanging around the theater and carrying on about you!' I said, 'But what will happen after I finish the movie? Can I come back? Because I want to go on with my ballet career.' She said, 'Absolutely. You can come straight back.' So, it was because of that assurance that I agreed to make 'The Red Shoes.' It was never because I wanted to do it.
As a novice actress, Miss Shearer felt constrained by her lack of experience and, more important, felt that her dancing fell far below her standards, that its technical level seemed insecure and unfocused. Too, she had the gnawing feeling that in undertaking this role, British ballet audiences and the ballet world in general would cease to take her seriously as a talented and rising young ballerina.
''The film was a huge success when it opened in London in the spring of 1948,'' Ms. Shearer said. ''But, just as I had suspected, the British ballet public didn't much approve of my appearing in it. Of course, after the film was completed in 1947, I went straight back to the Sadler's Wells to resume my dancing career, but even there, the reaction was a bit strange. I must say, I never did have an easy time of it in the company, and after the film, it didn't get any easier.''
It was in 1948, the year ''The Red Shoes'' was released, that Ms. Shearer achieved a technical breakthrough that would see her performing with new-found brilliance and elan. That year, Frederick Ashton, then the Sadler's Wells's resident choreographer, created Britain's first modern three-act ballet, ''Cinderella,'' a work meant for Ashton's constant muse, Margot Fonteyn. But Miss Fonteyn suffered a major injury during the early stages of its composition, and the ballet continued to be created upon the specific talents of Moira Shearer. In it, the young dancer scored a personal triumph, and her career began to soar.
For the next four years, Ms. Shearer danced in innumerable works by, among others, Ashton, Massine and, finally, Balanchine. It was the enthralling experience of working with Balanchine on ''Ballet Imperial'' in 1952 that prompted Ms. Shearer to write her memoir on him.
Ms. Shearer's appearance in ''Ballet Imperial'' would mark the end of her association with the Sadler's Wells Ballet. As time went by, she discovered, somewhat to her chagrin, that she had become a star - not for her superb performances in Ashton's ''Cinderella'' or Balanchine's ''Ballet Imperial'' or any of her other performances at the Sadler's Wells, but as the still-unformed dancer in ''The Red Shoes.''
''I just wish,'' Miss Shearer said, ''I had been a more rounded performer at the time I made it or that I would have done it two or three years later, when I think I would have done justice to it. Still, I've seen 'The Red Shoes' a couple of times in the past 10 years, and I must say that for all the creakiness of the dialogue and situations, it has a certain period charm.
''And, yes, I must admit, it's given me some good things. It's true, 'The Red Shoes' has made me remembered, which my ballet and theater career would not have done. So, I'm grateful in a sort of backhanded way. I've lived with the specter of 'The Red Shoes' for 40 years. I suppose I'll go on living with it. But isn't it strange that something you've never really wanted to do turns out to be the very thing that's given you a name and identity? Ah, well - life is full of such ironies!''.
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