- Tamara Geva
Tamara Geva (
17 March 1907 -9 December 1997 ) was aRussia nactress ,ballet dancer and choreographer. She was married for several years toGeorge Balanchine .Biography
She was born Tamara Gevergeyeva (she shortened her surname when she came to the West) in
St. Petersburg ,Russia , the daughter of Levko Gevergeyev, a wealthy manufacturer of church vestments and a patron of avante-garde artists. Her father was afreethinker and had been raised in theMuslim faith. Her mother was Swedish. Her parents were not officially married until their daughter was 6. As a child she lived in a huge 18th century house which had a miniature theater and a theater museum. The museum is preserved and is currently known as The State Museum of Theater and Music.Geva studied ballet with a private teacher, but after the
Russian Revolution of 1917 she entered the Imperial Theatre School inMaryinsky , when it began to accept older ballet students for night classes. Here she met dancer andimpresario George Balanchine , who was teachingballroom dance classes. She married Balanchine in 1921 (not 1923 as has been misreported) aged 14; the marriage was dissolved in 1926. She later married American actorJohn Emery , the former husband ofTallulah Bankhead .She died, aged 90, on
9 December 1997 at her home inManhattan from natural causes.Career
While still in Russia, Geva began appearing professionally in ballet concerts. In 1924, together with Balanchine and
Alexandra Danilova , Geva defected from the Soviet Russia on a tour to Germany, afterDiaghilev had invited them to join theBallets Russes , where she danced until 1926. She also appeared in 1925in a German production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream " as Oberon. In 1927, she introduced Balanchine's choreography toNew York City , when she danced two brief solos by him. At the time she was touring withNikita Balieff 's Chauve-Souris, a touring revue which was composed of Russian emigres.On Broadway, Geva appeared in the musicals "Three's A Crowd" (1930), "Flying Colors" (1932) and "Whoopee" (1934). In 1935 she performed with the
American Ballet . This was Balanchine's intitial company in New York. Afterwards Geva immersed herself in films and the theater. In 1936, she was paired with actorRay Bolger in the musical "On Your Toes " byRodgers and Hart . For "On Your Toes", she choreographed a dramatic "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue " sequence and a balletic parody. One reviewer described her performance as "magnificent", adding "she can burlesque it with the authority of an artist on holiday".Later she acted in plays that demonstrated her great flexibility as a performer. She was featured in productions of the works of
Euripedes ,George Bernard Shaw , andJean Paul Sartre . She starred withRaymond Massey in theLondon premiere of an anti-war play, "Idiot's Delight" (1938), written byRobert E. Sherwood . She acted inEuripedes ' "The Trojan Women" in New York in 1941, and in theLos Angeles, California production of Sartre's "No Exit" in 1947.In 1953 Geva played the character of a sarcastic acrobat in a New York revival of
George Bernard Shaw 's "Misalliance". The cast includedRoddy McDowall andRichard Kiley . In 1959, Geva andHaila Stoddard created "Come Play With Me" a musical comedy with a score penned byDana Suesse that had a short off-Broadway run. She choreographed the dances for a film "Specter of the Rose" (1946), written byBen Hecht . Her last performance was on screen in "Frevel" (1984), credited simply as Tamara.In her later years, Geva had several exhibitions of her paintings.
Filmography
Her English-speaking films:
*1951: an episode of "
The Web " (Golden Secret)
*1951: an episode of "The Adventures of Ellery Queen " (The Ballet Murder)
*1948: "The Gay Intruders" as Maria Ivar
*1946: "Specter of the Rose " choreography only
*1942: "Night Plane from Chungking" as Countess Olga Karagin
*1942: "Orchestra Wives" as Mrs. Beck
*1937: "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" as Madame 'Charlie' Charlizzini
*1934: "Their Big Moment" as Madame Lottie Marvo
*1931: "The Girl Habit" as Sonja MaloneyReferences
*Geva, Tamara. "Split Seconds: A Remembrance". Limelight Editions, 1972.
*"New York Times " obituary, December 11, 1997, p. B13.External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0315337 Tamara Geva] at the
IMDb
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.