14 Facts About Frank Staff

Frank Staff was a South African ballet dancer, choreographer, producer, and company director.

Frank Staff was a major figure in the history of European theatrical dance in South Africa.

Frank Cedric Staff was born to an Irish mother and an English father in the diamond mining town of Kimberley, in what is the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.

At age fifteen, Staff moved to London to continue his training at Rambert's school in Bedford Gardens.

Frank Staff was invited to join Rambert's Ballet Club, as her performing group was then called.

Frank Staff inherited many of Hugh Laing's roles in the Rambert repertory, including The Lover in Jardin aux Lilas and Mercury in The Planets, both works by Antony Tudor.

Frank Staff danced in several ballets by Frederick Ashton, among them Recamier, Facade, and Mephisto Valse.

Frank Staff danced such different roles as Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty, by Petipa; the Faun in Afternoon of a Faun, by Nijinsky; and Death in Death and the Maiden, by Howard.

Frank Staff's first choreographic work, The Tartans, was a new version of Ashton's ballet of the same name.

Frank Staff created Czerny 2, a second version of his popular hit, a series of dances caricaturing different kinds of ballet.

Frank Staff served as resident choreographer of the Metropolitan Ballet, toured Australia with Ballet Rambert, toured the United States and Canada with Sadler's Wells Ballet, and was appointed ballet master and choreographer at the Empire Theatre on London's Leicester Square.

Thereafter, Frank Staff was artistic director of PACOFS Ballet in Bloemfontein from 1969 until his death in 1971.

Frank Staff wed his fellow Ballet Rambert dancer Elisabeth Schooling in 1942, and she danced in many of his early works.

Frank Staff next married English dancer Jaqueline St Clere, followed by South African musical comedy actress Heather Lloyd-Jones.