Celebrity Deathwatch: Tanaquil Le Clercq, Ballerina, 72

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Arts/01/01/clercq.ap/index.html

Ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq dead at 72
January 1, 2001
Web posted at: 1:16 PM EST (1816 GMT)


NEW YORK (AP) -- Tanaquil Le Clercq, the ballerina who dazzled the world in
the 1940s and '50s before her career was cut short by paralytic polio, died
of pneumonia Sunday. She was 71.

Le Clercq contracted the disease, which left her paralyzed below the waist,
in 1956. At the time, she was the fourth wife of George Balanchine and had
attracted an adoring public because of her long-legged elegance.

She later became a teacher at Dance Theater of Harlem, wrote two books and
regularly attended dance performances.

The New York City Ballet, of which Le Clercq was a charter member, paid
tribute to her in 1988, when it opened its 50th-anniversary season. She
acknowledged a thunderous New York State Theater ovation from her
wheelchair.

Le Clercq was blessed with an elongated physique that she used with
refinement or humor. She epitomized the modernized look in classical
dancing, which enthralled Balanchine, who once cast her as a dragonfly. As
the first City Ballet ballerina trained since childhood by Balanchine, she
was naturally identified with the roles he created for her in his major
works, such as the ballets "Symphonie Concertante," "Symphony in C" and "La
Valse," in which her doomed heroine danced herself to death.

She was equally unforgettable in the ballets of Jerome Robbins and as the
white-faced allegorical figure of Sacred Love in "Illuminations" in 1950.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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