Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 – 31 January 2006), was an internationally famous Scottish ballet dancer and actress.

She was born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the daughter of actor Harold V. King. In 1931 her family relocated to Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, where she received her first dancing training under a former pupil of Enrico Cecchetti. She returned to the United Kingdom in 1936 and trained with Flora Fairbairn in London for a few months before she was accepted as a pupil by the Russian teacher Nicholas Legat. After three years with Legat, she joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. However, after the outbreak of the World War II, her parents took her to live in Scotland. She made her debut with the International Ballet in 1941 before moving on to Sadler’s Wells in 1942.

She came to international attention for her first film role as Victoria Page in the Powell & Pressburger ballet-themed film The Red Shoes, (1948). Even her hair matched the titular footwear, and the role and film were so powerful that although she went on to star in other films and worked as a dancer for many decades, she is primarily known for playing “Vicky.”

Shearer retired from ballet in 1953, but she continued to act, appearing as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 1954 Edinburgh Festival. She worked again for Powell on the controversial film Peeping Tom (1960), which damaged Powell’s own career.

In 1972, she was chosen by the BBC to present the Eurovision Song Contest when it was staged at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. According to author and historian John Kennedy O’Connor’s The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, Shearer accepted the role of hostess because her children wanted something to tease her with in the future. She also wrote for The Daily Telegraph newspaper and gave talks on ballet worldwide.

The choreographer Gillian Lynne persuaded her to return to ballet in 1987 to play L. S. Lowry’s mother in A Simple Man for the BBC. —Wikipedia