I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [209]
10. Later to be Catwoman in the 1960s television show Batman.
11. They call it “huit” (eight, in French) because the four changes are multiplied by two since there are two feet.
12. Phil showed up to visit New York in June 2004. He came to watch National Dance Institute’s Saturday children’s class, and I introduced him to the dancing star Donlin Foreman, saying, “This is my buddy Phil. We’ve known each other from ancient times. He’s eighty years old and in a hell of a lot better shape than me. Feel those pecs.” “How do you do it?” asked Donlin. “Three times a night!” Phil proclaimed. Phil’s falling through the glass door feat was topped only by an incident I didn’t witness, but heard about. I was living on 163rd and St. Nicholas Avenue, and must have been ten or eleven years old. An old couple lived in my building. The old man, Albert, got out of bed one morning. Stiff and tired, he was having trouble getting his leg into his pants. He got one in, and then, as he was trying to get the other in, he lost his balance and started hopping to catch up, all the while conversing with his wife, who was sitting in bed. He hopped himself right out the window, fell four floors, and died.
13. In later years, whenever I choreographed a ballet, Balanchine would send me a case of Mouton Rothschild along with a note: “For your ballet.”
14. We loved to eat, Tanny and I; dancing kept us slim, so the sky’s the limit on the cuisine. Tanny even did a cookbook where different ballet friends gave their favorite recipes. I gave her a stack and most of them ended up in her book. The number of mine she included is second only to Balanchine’s.
15. With a few exceptions, all who have used the Order of the Garter have been ballet stars or well-known performers: Pat Johnston and F. N. Bibbins (June 13, 1951); Joan Vickers and Stanley Davis (December 18, 1952); Sally Streets and Alex Nichols, parents of NYCB ballerina Kyra Nichols (October 1955); Carolyn George and Jacques d’Amboise (January 1, 1956); Edith Brozek and Frank McMann (May 26, 1957); Sally Bailey and John Flynn (June 22, 1957); Marilyn George and Dan Sheffield (July 22, 1957); Jillana and Ben Janney (May 27, 1960); Vida Brown and Stanley Olinick (June 26, 1964); Wintress Perkins and Warren Wetzel (February 17, 1968); Kyra Nichols and Daniel Duell (September 3, 1978); Kay Mazzo and Albert Bellas (December 21, 1978); Marcia Rubine and John Masten (July 22, 1979); Marjorie Spohn and Alexander Hyatt (September 13, 1981); Diane Lyons and Eli Boatwright Jr. (April 14, 1990); Catherine d’Amboise and Peter Brill (April 20, 1991); Charlotte d’Amboise and Terrence Mann (January 20, 1996); Kathleen Donlin and John Badalament (July 29, 2000). After Kelly Crandall and Christopher d’Amboise married in August 2008, the pink garter went to Kay Gayner for her marriage to Frank Wood, September 26, 2009, and the garter is presently awaiting its next limb.
A Honeymoon in Haiti
1. Katherine Dunham, a titan in the world of modern dance, was renowned for bringing traditional Haitian dance forms to America and incorporating these forms into contemporary dance idiom. She and Balanchine met in 1940, while she and her troupe appeared in the musical Cabin in the Sky, directed by Balanchine. She died in 2006, at the age of ninety-six, destitute. Friends were paying her apartment costs.
2. François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, was elected President of Haiti in 1956. By 1964, he had installed himself as President for Life. That life left him in 1971 and left his power to Baby Doc, his son, Jean-Claude.
3. The polio vaccine had just come out before we left for tour, and many of us had been immunized. Some, including Tanny, opted not to have the vaccination then. Shortly after Copenhagen, Ann Crowell, one of the dancers in the corps de ballet, complained of a pulled muscle in her shoulder blade, which didn’t seem to get better. Years later, a doctor told her she had had polio, and the muscle in her shoulder had died. Rumor had it that the consul general’s wife in Cologne contracted polio after the