Born Today In 1938, 'Lord of the Dance' Rudolf Nureyev

Photograph: BBC/IWC Media/Alexey Kostromin

Rudolf Nureyev was born today, March 17, in 1938. He was a Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer. He was director of the Paris Opera Ballet from 1983 to 1989 and its chief choreographer until October 1992.

Named Lord of the Dance, Nureyev is regarded as one of ballet's most gifted dancers ever.

In addition to his technical prowess, Rudolf Nureyev was an accomplished choreographer. He produced his own interpretations of numerous classical works, including Swan Lake, Giselle, and La Bayadère.

Nureyev had his early career with the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg. He defected from the Soviet Union to the West in 1961, despite KGB efforts to stop him. This was the first defection of a Soviet artist during the Cold War and it created an international sensation.

He went on to dance with The Royal Ballet in London and from 1983 to 1989 served as director of the Paris Opera Ballet.

Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk, Siberia, Soviet Union, while his mother, Feride, was travelling to Vladivostok, where his father Hamit, a Red Army political commissar, was stationed.

When his mother took Nureyev and his three older sisters into a performance of the ballet Song of the Cranes, he fell in love with dance. As a child he was encouraged to dance in Bashkir folk performances and his precocity was soon noticed by teachers who encouraged him to train in Saint Petersburg. On a tour stop in Moscow with a local ballet company, Nureyev auditioned for the Bolshoi ballet company and was accepted.

However, he felt that the Mariinsky Ballet school was the best, so he left the local touring company and bought a ticket to St. Petersburg. In 1958, Nureyev joined the Kirov Ballet (now Mariinsky). He moved immediately beyond the corps level, and was given solo roles as a principal dancer from the outset.

Rudolf Nureyev in 1961.

Before long Rudolf Nureyev became one of the Soviet Union's best-known dancers. From 1958 to 1961, in his 3 years with the Mariinsky, he danced 15 roles.

When the Mariinsky Ballet went on a tour to Paris and London, Nureyev was seen to have broken the rules about mingling with foreigners. He allegedly frequented gay bars in Paris, which alarmed the Mariinsky's management and the KGB agents observing him. The KGB wanted to send him back to the Soviet Union. On June 16, 1961, the Mariinsky group had gathered at Le Bourget Airport in Paris to fly to London. Sergeyev then took Nureyev aside and told him that he would have to return to Moscow, for a special performance in the Kremlin. Nureyev became suspicious and refused. Next he was told that his mother had fallen severely ill and he needed to come home immediately to see her. Nureyev refused again, believing that on return to the USSR he was likely to be imprisoned. With the help of French police and a Parisian socialite friend, Nureyev got away from his KGB minders and asked for asylum. Sergeyev and the KGB tried to discuss it with him but he chose to stay in Paris.

Within a week, he was signed up by the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and was performing The Sleeping Beauty. Soviet authorities made Nureyev's father, mother, and dance teacher Pushkin write letters to him, urging him to return, without effect.

Although he petitioned the Soviet government for many years to be allowed to visit his mother, he was not allowed to do so until 1987, when his mother was dying and Mikhail Gorbachev consented to the visit. In 1989, he was invited to dance the role of James in La Sylphide with the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg. The visit gave him the opportunity to see many of the teachers and colleagues he had not seen since his defection.

In 1982, Nureyev became a naturalized citizen of Austria. In 1983, he was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet, where, as well as directing, he continued to dance and to promote younger dancers. He remained there as a dancer and chief choreographer until 1989.

Despite advancing illness toward the end of his tenure, he worked tirelessly, staging new versions of old standbys and commissioning some of the most ground-breaking choreographic works of his time.

Rudolf Nureyev did not have much patience with rules, limitations and hierarchical order and had at times a volatile temper. He was apt to throw tantrums in public when frustrated. His impatience mainly showed itself when the failings of others interfered with his work.

Nureyev dances with 9-year-old Ricky Schroder at Studio 54 in New York in 1979. (AP Photo/Quinto)

He socialized with Gore Vidal, Freddie Mercury, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, and Andy Warhol. He occasionally visited the legendary New York discotheque Studio 54 in the late 1970s, but developed an intolerance for celebrities. He kept up old friendships in and out of the ballet world for decades, and was considered to be a loyal and generous friend.

Most ballerinas with whom Rudolf Nureyev danced, including Antoinette Sibley, Gelsey Kirkland and Annette Page paid tribute to him as a considerate partner. He was known as extremely generous to many ballerinas, who credit him with helping them during difficult times.

Nureyev painting by Jamie Wyeth

Depending on the source, Nureyev is described as either bisexual, as he did have heterosexual relationships as a younger man, or gay. He was known to frequent gay bathhouses. Nureyev met Erik Bruhn, the celebrated Danish dancer, after Nureyev defected to the West in 1961. Nureyev was a great admirer of Bruhn, having seen filmed performances of the Dane on tour in the Soviet Union with the American Ballet Theatre, although stylistically the two dancers were very different. Bruhn and Nureyev became a couple and the two remained together off and on, with a very volatile relationship for 25 years, until Bruhn's death in 1986.

In 1973 Nureyev met the 23-year-old American dancer Robert Tracy and a two-and-a-half-year love affair began. Tracy later became Nureyev's secretary and live-in companion. According to Tracy, Nureyev said that he had had sex with three women in his life, he had always wanted a son, and once had plans to father one with Nastassja Kinski.

When AIDS appeared in France's news around 1982, Nureyev took little notice. The dancer tested positive for HIV in 1984, but for several years he simply denied that anything was wrong with his health. However, by the late 1980s his diminished capabilities disappointed his admirers who had fond memories of his outstanding prowess and skill. Nureyev began a marked decline only in the summer of 1991 and entered the final phase of the disease in the spring of 1992.

Nureyev entered the hospital Notre Dame du Perpétuel Secours in Levallois-Perret in November 1992 and remained there until his death from cardiac complications at age 54 on January 6, 1993.