Once in a blue moon, the subject of one of our centennial posts is being celebrated elsewhere. Maria Tallchief (1925-2013) is being remembered in a program of dances associated with her this season at New York City Ballet. Her legacy deserved to be much more widely acknowledged. I bet not one American in a thousand knows that their country’s first prima ballerina was a Native American.
Tallchief was a great granddaughter of Peter Bigheart, a key player in negotiating the Oklahoma oil rights that enriched the Osage Nation (the tribe depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon). Her father was a man of property and substance. The family summered in Colorado Springs, and this is where Maria took her first ballet and tap classes. Some of her first childhood recitals took place at rodeos!
In 1933 the family moved to Los Angeles, where she studied with Ernest Belcher, father of Marge Champion, and then Bronislava Nijinska, sister of Njinsky. Dancing in a background part in the Judy Garland musical Presenting Lily Mars (1942) soured her on dancing in movies, although she would later play Pavlova in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). She moved to New York, where she danced initially with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in such works as Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, or The Courting at Burnt Ranch. Two years later she began working with Balanchine, who formed what became the New York City Ballet in 1946. She married the choreographer that same year. They broke up in 1952, but Tallchief remained the star of the company through 1960, dancing the lead in such works at The Firebird, Orpheus, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. She then starred with the American Ballet Theatre through 1965. Her last performance in the U.S. was on the TV show The Bell Telephone Hour in 1966. Her final engagement as a dancer was with the Hamburg Ballet later that year.
Maria Tallchief was the first American to dance with the Bolshoi, and throughout she also guest starred with such companies as the Royal Danish Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, and the Chicago Opera Ballet. Chicago became her base in later years. She was the ballet director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1973 to 1979, starting that organization’s ballet school under her tenure. In 1980 she co-founded the Chicago City Ballet with her sister Marjorie Tallchief. serving as co-directors until the company folded in 1987. She then went on to be an adviser for Chicago Festival Ballet. Her memoir Maria Tallchief: America’s Prima Ballerina was published in 1997.
Much like Pavlova, whom she had played in Million Dollar Mermaid, Tallchief also performed in variety theater — in this case television variety. Throughout the 1950s she was a frequent sight on such programs as The Ed Sullivan Show, Your Show of Shows, The Faye Emerson Show, The Kate Smith Evening Hour, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Dave Garroway Show, The Tonight Show, and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, among others.
Tallchief’s daughter is Elise Paschen, former Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America.
For more about the performing arts consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.