1. Pearl Argyle appeared in leading roles with English ballet companies in the 1930s and later performed in stage musicals and in films.
13 Facts About Pearl Argyle
1. 2.
Pearl Argyle first enters dance history in the mid-1920s, when she appeared in London and enrolled in ballet classes at the schools of Nikolai Legat, in Colet Gardens, and Dame Marie Rambert, in Notting Hill Gate.
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At the time that Pearl Argyle studied at the Rambert Ballet School, Ashton was the principal dancer of its performing group as well as a budding choreographer.
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Pearl Argyle recalled that she was a shy young woman, subject to blushing when addressed, but was a charming person and a graceful dancer.
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Pearl Argyle was an important member of Rambert's group of student performers in the late 1920s and of the subsequent Ballet Club and the Camargo Society, from 1930 to 1935.
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Pearl Argyle had left London in 1933 to go to Paris, where she danced with George Balanchine's short-lived company Les Ballets 1933, led by Tamara Toumanova and Tilly Losch.
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Pearl Argyle created the title role in Andree Howard's The Mermaid, based on Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Little Mermaid," which was her last new role for the Ballet Club.
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Pearl Argyle appeared in other ballets in the company's repertory, notably Les Sylphides and The Sleeping Beauty.
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In 1935, Pearl Argyle left Rambert's company to join the Vic-Wells Ballet as a principal dancer.
10.
In 1932, it is a matter of record that Pearl Argyle appeared in Ballyhoo, a revue at London's Comedy Theatre starring Hermione Baddeley and George Sanders, with dances and ensembles by Buddy Bradley and ballets by Frederick Ashton.
11.
Pearl Argyle danced in four numbers: By Candlelight, with Walter Crisham, John Byron, and The Girls; Mediterranean Madness, with Walter Gore as The Matelot; Far beyond the Crowd, with Walter Crisham and others; and Ballet for Four Pianos and Orchestra, with Walter Gore, John Byron, and The Girls.
12.
In 1936, Pearl Argyle married German film director Curtis Bernhardt, known as Kurt, and their son Steven was born in February 1937.
13.
In 1947, aged 36, Pearl Argyle died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage while visiting her husband in New York.