Stunning Portraits of A Very Young and Beautiful Margot Fonteyn in the 1930s

Margot Fonteyn (born Margaret Evelyn Hookham, May 18, 1919 – February 21, 1991) was a young, rising British ballerina in the 1930s who became the leading figure in what would evolve into the Royal Ballet. Se began ballet lessons at age four. Her family moved to China (Tianjin and Shanghai) when she was about eight, where she studied with Russian émigré teacher Georgy Goncharov. She returned to London around age 14 to pursue a professional career.

In 1933–1934, she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet School (founded by Ninette de Valois, later the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and then the Royal Ballet). She initially performed under variations of “Margot Fontes” before settling on “Fonteyn.”

In 1934, she debuted with the Vic-Wells Ballet as a snowflake in The Nutcracker. In 1935, at the age of 16, she had her solo debut as Young Tregennis in The Haunted Ballroom. Frederick Ashton created the role of the Young Bride in Le Baiser de la Fée specifically for her. When Alicia Markova left the company, Fonteyn quickly rose to take on principal and leading roles, sharing and then dominating them. She also studied in Paris during summers with Russian ballerinas like Olga Preobrajenska, Mathilde Kschessinska, and Lubov Egorova. She formed a key early partnership with Robert Helpmann, which lasted into the 1940s. Ashton and others created or cast her in notable roles, leveraging her lyricism, elegance, and graceful, somewhat “feline”quality.

By the late 1930s, she had danced principal roles in classics like Giselle, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty (including Aurora in a 1939 revival, later considered definitive for the era). She was effectively the company’s prima ballerina by 1939.

The company performed in a pre-WWII context, with emerging experiments in television broadcasts (e.g., her Polka from Façade in 1936). Roles in the 1930s included Apparitions (1936, as the unattainable muse), Nocturne, A Wedding Bouquet, and Les Patineurs.

The 1930s laid the foundation for her long career as one of the 20th century’s most iconic ballerinas, later partnering famously with Rudolf Nureyev in the 1960s. She danced until 1979 and was named prima ballerina assoluta.