Tamara Tumanova Ballerina and actress Date of Birth: 02.03.1919 Country: USA

Biography of Tamara Tumanova

Tamara Tumanova was a Georgian-born ballerina and actress who spent most of her life in France. She was born on a train while her mother, Evgenia Hazidovich-Boretskaya, was traveling to Siberia. Tumanova was 18 months old when her parents reunited after the revolution that had separated them. The family left Russia and settled in Shanghai for a year before moving to Cairo. After years of wandering through refugee camps, they eventually relocated to Paris. It was there that Tamara began taking piano lessons. In 1926, she started studying ballet at the renowned Olga Preobrajenska School. Tumanova made her debut at the age of nine in the ballet "L'Éventail de Jeanne." It was during this performance that she caught the attention of George Balanchine, who, in 1933, invited her to join the "baby ballerina" troupe along with Tatiana Riabouchinska and Irina Baronova. She soon earned the nickname "The Black Pearl of Russian Ballet." From the 1930s onwards, Tumanova established herself as a leading ballerina, performing on prestigious ballet stages across Europe and America, including the Paris Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala. She collaborated with the most famous ballet companies in the world and worked with renowned choreographers such as Serge Lifar, Leonid Massine, George Balanchine, and Bronislava Nijinska. She also rehearsed her ballets with Mikhail Fokine. Tumanova had close creative and personal relationships with Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and other prominent figures of the time.

In 1944, Tamara married American screenwriter and producer Casey Robinson (they divorced in 1954). She made her film debut in 1944 in Jacques Tourneur's "Days of Glory," where she starred alongside Gregory Peck. After settling in the United States, she appeared in films such as Gene Kelly's "Invitation to the Dance" (1956), Alfred Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain" (1966), and Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970).