This obit is certainly topic because dialogue here has been about your
favorite poster or first purchase. I have always wanted paper from "The Red
Shoes" but it has been scarce or very expensive. For those who are not
aware of The Red Shoes, the film remains a beautifully stylized invention
and one of the great films ever made. Moira Shearer's role is thoroughly
original and displays her spectacular talent as an actress and dancer.
So Bye, Bye, Moira Shearer, and thanks for the memories!
Danny / Seattle
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'Red Shoes' helped make Moira Shearer a star
The Scottish-born ballerina and film actress died Tuesday at age 80 at a
hospital in Oxford, England.
By DAVID STRINGER
The Associated Press
LONDON Moira Shearer, a British ballerina who rose to worldwide
prominence with the lead role in the 1948 film "The Red Shoes," has died,
her husband said Wednesday. She was 80.
Shearer died Tuesday at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, said her
husband, journalist and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy, whom she married in
1950.
Shearer, born in Dunfermline, Scotland, became principal dancer at London
s Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1942 and won her first major role in 1946,
playing the lead in "Sleeping Beauty" at the Royal Opera House.
But it was as the young ballerina Victoria Page in Michael Powell and
Emeric Pressburger's film "The Red Shoes" that the stunning redhead caught
the world's attention.
"She was full of spirit and also she was very beautiful. She moved
wonderfully gracefully as you would expect of a ballet dancer," Kennedy told
reporters.
The film, loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, is celebrated
for its rich use of color and intimate view of backstage life in ballet.
Shearer's character becomes a great star but is torn between her love for
a young composer and her career, which is guided by a jealous impresario.
The film contained a complete ballet, telling the Andersen story in dance,
performed by Shearer and others.
It was a huge international hit and was nominated for the Oscar for best
picture; it won Oscars for best art direction and best music. A 1999 British
Film Institute survey of movie industry professionals ranked "The Red Shoes"
as one of the 10 greatest British films of all time.
The size three satin pointe shoes Shearer wore in the film sold for $25
000 at auction in London in 2000.
Though she took roles in later films - including Pressburger's "The Tales
of Hoffmann" in 1951 and Powell's 1960 thriller, "Peeping Tom" - Shearer
remained ambivalent toward the medium, preferring to focus on dance.
"The ballet was the thing to which she was really committed. The film
industry was a bit of a distraction," Kennedy said. "She was quite
otherworldly. She didn't have a commitment, if you look, in herself to
making films, but she had a total commitment to ballet.
Shearer, who became Lady Kennedy after her husband was knighted, is also
survived by her four children. Funeral arrangements and a memorial service
were pending.
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