Ballet Dancer. She was a prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet who helped her husband found the National Dance Institute, then became a noted photographer. Raised in Dallas, she gained her first stage experience in local summer musicals, the "Starlight Operettas", then went to New York for study with George Balanchine in 1946. After one year at Texas State College for Women, and further training in San Francisco, Miss George returned to New York in 1952, and made an unscheduled City Ballet debut in "Swan Lake" when she was pulled from the audience to replace an ill dancer. She was a regular soloist from 1954 (Jerome Robbins gave her her nickname for her leaps in Ballanchine's "Symphony in C"), and created a number of roles with the company, in productions including Robbins' "Fanfare", Todd Bolender's "Souvenirs", and William Dollar's "Five Gifts". She retired from the stage in 1959, but made a final City Ballet appearance as the grandmother in a 1973 "Nutcracker". She became a photographer in the 1980s, initially of ballet, but branching out into other subjects, and published several books of her work. Miss George died after a battle with a neuromuscular disease similar to Lou Gehrig's.
Ballet Dancer. She was a prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet who helped her husband found the National Dance Institute, then became a noted photographer. Raised in Dallas, she gained her first stage experience in local summer musicals, the "Starlight Operettas", then went to New York for study with George Balanchine in 1946. After one year at Texas State College for Women, and further training in San Francisco, Miss George returned to New York in 1952, and made an unscheduled City Ballet debut in "Swan Lake" when she was pulled from the audience to replace an ill dancer. She was a regular soloist from 1954 (Jerome Robbins gave her her nickname for her leaps in Ballanchine's "Symphony in C"), and created a number of roles with the company, in productions including Robbins' "Fanfare", Todd Bolender's "Souvenirs", and William Dollar's "Five Gifts". She retired from the stage in 1959, but made a final City Ballet appearance as the grandmother in a 1973 "Nutcracker". She became a photographer in the 1980s, initially of ballet, but branching out into other subjects, and published several books of her work. Miss George died after a battle with a neuromuscular disease similar to Lou Gehrig's.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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