Dame
Beryl Elizabeth Grey CH DBE FRSA (née Groom;
born 11 June 1927) is a retired English ballet dancer. Born
in Highgate, London, she began dance classes at the age
of four while attending Sherbourne Preparatory School, and by age eight was
being taught by Phyllis Bedells. By the age of nine she had become the star
pupil of her school, had been presented a silver medal by Tamara Karsavina and had passed all the examinations of
the Royal Academy of Dancing it
was possible for her to take. Her talent was recognised by Ursula Moreton and Ninette de Valois, who offered her a scholarship for four years
at the age of ten, with the option of joining their dance company for a further
four years. She began to attend the Sadler's Wells School in
1937 where her teachers were Ninette de Valois and Vera Volkova. In August 1941, she was taken into the company
at the age of fourteen and joined them during a provincial tour, at Burnley. Her first appearance with the company was in
the corps de ballet of Le Lac des Cygnes. She progressed through the company at a
steady rate. Her first solo role was as one of the Blue Skaters in Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs. Her
first lead role was as the Serving Maid in The Gods Go A-Begging "with
a charm and style remarkable for a child of fourteen and a half". On her
fifteenth birthday, Dame Ninette de Valois gave her an inscribed copy of Gordon
Anthony's book on Dame Margot Fonteyn and the opportunity of dancing
Odette-Odile in the full-length Le Lac des Cygnes. In 1942, Robert Helpmann created the first role for her in his
second ballet The Birds where she was The Nightingale. In
April 1943, she created her first dramatic role as Duessa in Ashton's
ballet, The Quest, which was based on Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. On 1 March 1944, she first portrayed
the main role of Giselle in Derby.
She then performed the role in London for the first time on her seventeenth
birthday. Grey is also known for her interpretation of Myrtha, Queen of
the Wilis, which she first performed in 1946. She first performed the role
of Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty on
20 June 1946 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. From 1957 until the
mid-1960s, Grey was an international guest ballerina across Europe, South
America, Australasia, the Far East, the United States and Canada. In 1957, she
became the first English dancer to appear as guest ballerina with the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballet. Grey was the first Western guest artist to
dance with the Bolshoi Ballet (1957-1958), and to appear with the Peking Ballet and
Shanghai Company (with a Chinese partner) in 1964 She was the subject of This Is Your Life in
April 1974 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the London Festival Ballet's Donmar
rehearsal studios in London's Covent Garden.