Lucia Chase
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Lucia Hosmer Chase (March 24, 1897[1] – January 9, 1986) was an American dancer, actress, ballet director and also the co-founder of the American Ballet Theatre.[2]
Life and career
Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Chase was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Elizabeth Hosmer (Kellogg) and Irving Hall Chase.[3] She attended St. Margaret's School and later Bryn Mawr College.[4]
After deciding to focus on theater, she studied drama at New York's Theater Guild School where she also took ballet lessons. Though her first love was the theatre, after she decided that dance was to be her life, she studied seriously with, among others, Mikhail Mordkin, Michel Fokine, Antony Tudor, and Bronislava Nijinska. She performed with the Mordkin Ballet from 1937 to 1939, where she danced the title roles in The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle.
In 1940, she and Richard Pleasant founded Ballet Theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), with Lucia Chase as principal dancer (and prime financial backer), although she concentrated on the more dramatic and comedic roles.
She created the Eldest Sister in Tudor's Pillar of Fire (1942) and the Greedy One in Agnes de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil (1941). In 1945 she and Oliver Smith jointly took over direction of American Ballet Theatre.
She retired from the stage in 1960, and retired as company director in 1980, when she was succeeded by Mikhail Baryshnikov.
She devoted her energy and a large part of her personal fortune over four decades to ensure the company's survival. She brought Tudor and Baryshnikov to American Ballet Theatre and encouraged US choreographers such as Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley and Twyla Tharp. She was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
Chase was married to Thomas Ewing, with whom she had two sons. She died in New York City.
Chase was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 1988.
In 2009, the book, Bravura!: Lucia Chase and the American Ballet Theatre, written by her son Alex C. Ewing, was released.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Live from Lincoln Center (Swan Lake) | Queen Mother | 1 episode |
| 1957 | Omnibus (Lizzie Borden) | Stepmother | 1 episode |
| 1973 | American Ballet Theatre: A Close-Up in Time | Herself |
References
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External links
- Template:Trim/ Template:PAGENAMEBASE at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- News
- Memorial
- Medal of Freedom Awards by President Carter 1977-1981
- American Ballet Theatre
- Italian short biography
- Google Books
Template:Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Template:Authority control
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with reference errors
- 1897 births
- 1986 deaths
- American ballerinas
- American Ballet Theatre dancers
- American theatre directors
- American women theatre directors
- American musical theatre directors
- Actresses from Waterbury, Connecticut
- American film actresses
- 20th-century American actresses
- Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
- 20th-century American ballet dancers