Svetlana Beriosova was such a lovely dancer. I don't think she ever quite got her due. When she retired she gave her silk tights to Fonteyn. Fonteyn loved to wear silk tights. I have some wonderful pictures of Beriosova.

That's an interesting story about the silk tights. I had read Fonteyn was partial to silk tights, and lamented not being able to get them.

Fonteyn also wanted double faced satin ribbons and she once declared that when she could no longer get them she would retire. When I first started dancing one could buy double faced satin ribbons - but not for a long time now.<P>She also had some very peculiar tastes in food. There were many foods she just wouldn't eat. She, apparently, really hated eggs. <P>The autobiography that she wrote is very interesting. There are also many interesting things about her in Diane Solway's really engrossing bio on Nureyev. A fantastic amount of research went into that. I would like to see a definitive (if such a thing is possible) bio of Fonteyn. It would be a great companion book to her autobiography.<P>It was quite a story of her and her husband and what happened to them - would make a great ballet actually. Who would dance Fonteyn? Hey that's a great idea for a new thread.<P>Who would dance Fonteyn in a ballet about her life?

I've not met any famous dance people but I have been to a garden party at Dame Judi Dench and her husband Michael Williams house, (they are both famous British actors). I have also met Philip Schofield who played Joseph in the West End for a time, also Cliff Richard. However i have an advantage, my Dad has for many years worked as a Costume Designer in TV - he once worked with Robert Wagner and briefly met Natalie Wood!

hi joanne! i really appreciated natlie wood, and found her death so sad.<P>princess grace, natalie wood, audrey hepburn, and then, so dreadfully, princess diana's death, were all shocking losses to my 'personal' world, leaving it a less interesting (and less attractive) place. audrey hepburn's, less so, because it was due to illness, but the others were striking blows...<P>basheva, i never saw beriosova dance. and i've never seen a pair of silk tights!<P>there is a more recent biography of fonteyn, which IS somewhat more revealing than previous words in print. <P>alastair macauley wrote "Margot Fonteyn", in the Pocket Biographies series, which is available very cheaply as a paperback, from dancebooks. that was last year, i think. i recommend it as a very easy read, rather than anything in-depth, but it does add to the general store of knowledge about her, in at least one area, being her early relationship with constant lambert.<P>i think you'd enjoy it, basheva.

Grace - I KNOW it would enjoy any book about Fonteyn. But I would really like to see a definitive book about her - it's kind of about time.<P>Audrey Hepburn was such a singular beauty - no one quite like her. I remember Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause - yes, I am THAT old. Another woman who seems to be eternally beautiful is Sophia Loren. She lives in Santa Barbara I have been told - and that isn't very far from me - I have been on vacation there several times. <P>I am still trying to think about who could dance Fonteyn if there were a movie about her? I am not sure there is anyone dancing today with that special splash of sweetness in her dancing.

I believe a definitive biography of Fonteyn is being written, but not due until next year, or even 2002. The Alastair Macaulay one is good, but very short.<P>I'd thought her life would make a very good ballet. You could have some good Panamanian carnival scenes - nice costumes - and Rudolf would come into it. Both Constant Lambert and Tito Arias would be hard to cast, as they were both fat, but Fonteyn would be impossible to cast. No-one could possibly measure up. It would make a good film, too.