Moira Shearer King, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 â€" 31 January
2006), was an internationally renowned British ballet dancer and
actress. She is best remembered for her performances in Powell and
Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948) and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom
(1960).She was born Moira Shearer King at Morton Lodge in Dunfermline,
Fife, Scotland, the only child of civil engineer Harold Charles King
and Margaret Crawford Reid, née Shearer. In 1931 her family moved to
Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, where her father worked as a civil engineer
and where she received her first dancing training under a former pupil
of Enrico Cecchetti. She returned to Britain 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. At his studio she met
Mona Inglesby who gave Shearer a part in her new ballet Endymion,
presented at an all star matinee at the Cambridge Theatre in 1938.
After three years with Legat, she joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet
School. After the outbreak of World War II, her parents took her to
live in Scotland. She joined Mona Inglesby's International Ballet for
its 1941 provincial tour and West End season before moving on to
Sadler's Wells in 1942.Shearer first came to the public’s attention
as Posy Fossil in the advertisements for the Noel Streatfeild book
Ballet Shoes while she was training under Flora Fairbairn, a good
friend of Streatfeild's.
2006), was an internationally renowned British ballet dancer and
actress. She is best remembered for her performances in Powell and
Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948) and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom
(1960).She was born Moira Shearer King at Morton Lodge in Dunfermline,
Fife, Scotland, the only child of civil engineer Harold Charles King
and Margaret Crawford Reid, née Shearer. In 1931 her family moved to
Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, where her father worked as a civil engineer
and where she received her first dancing training under a former pupil
of Enrico Cecchetti. She returned to Britain 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. At his studio she met
Mona Inglesby who gave Shearer a part in her new ballet Endymion,
presented at an all star matinee at the Cambridge Theatre in 1938.
After three years with Legat, she joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet
School. After the outbreak of World War II, her parents took her to
live in Scotland. She joined Mona Inglesby's International Ballet for
its 1941 provincial tour and West End season before moving on to
Sadler's Wells in 1942.Shearer first came to the public’s attention
as Posy Fossil in the advertisements for the Noel Streatfeild book
Ballet Shoes while she was training under Flora Fairbairn, a good
friend of Streatfeild's.
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