Tamara Geva
Encyclopedia
Tamara Geva was a Russia
n actress, ballet dancer and choreographer. She was the first wife of dancer/choreographer George Balanchine
.
. Her father was a freethinker
and had been raised in the Muslim
faith. Her mother was Swedish. Her parents were not officially married until their daughter was 6. As a child she lived in a huge 18th century house which had a miniature theater and a theater museum. The museum is preserved and is currently known as The State Museum of Theater and Music.
Geva studied ballet with a private teacher, but after the Russian Revolution of 1917
she entered the Imperial Theatre School in Maryinsky, when it began to accept older ballet students for night classes. Here she met dancer and impresario
George Balanchine
, who was teaching ballroom dance
classes. She married Balanchine in 1921 (not 1923 as has been misreported) aged 14; the marriage was dissolved in 1926. She later married American actor John Emery, the former husband of Tallulah Bankhead
.
She died, aged 90, on 9 December 1997 at her home in Manhattan
from natural causes.
, Geva defected from the Soviet Russia on a tour to Germany, after Diaghilev had invited them to join the Ballets Russes
, where she danced until 1926. She also appeared in 1925
in a German production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
as Oberon. In 1927, she introduced Balanchine's choreography to New York City
, when she danced two brief solos by him. At the time she was touring with Nikita Balieff
's Chauve-Souris, a touring revue which was composed of Russian emigres.
On Broadway
, Geva appeared in the musicals Three's A Crowd (1930), Flying Colors
(1932) and Whoopee (1934). In 1935 she performed with the American Ballet
. This was Balanchine's initial company in New York. Geva immersed herself
in film and theater work. In 1936, she was paired with actor Ray Bolger
in the musical On Your Toes
by Rodgers and Hart
.
For On Your Toes, she choreographed a dramatic "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
" sequence and a balletic parody. One reviewer described her performance as magnificent, adding "she can burlesque it with the authority of an artist on holiday". She went on to act in plays that demonstrated her great flexibility as a performer. She was featured in productions of the works of Euripedes, George Bernard Shaw
, and Jean Paul Sartre. She starred with Raymond Massey
in the London
premiere of an anti-war play, Idiot's Delight (1938), written by Robert E. Sherwood
. She acted in Euripedes' The Trojan Women in New York in 1941, and in the Los Angeles, California
production of Sartre's No Exit in 1947.
In 1953 Geva played the character of a sarcastic acrobat in a New York revival of George Bernard Shaw
's Misalliance. The cast included Roddy McDowall
and Richard Kiley. In 1959, Geva and Haila Stoddard
created Come Play With Me a musical comedy with a score penned by Dana Suesse
that had a short off-Broadway run.
She choreographed the dances for the film Specter of the Rose
(1946), written by Ben Hecht
. Her last performance was on screen in Frevel (1984), credited simply as Tamara.
In her later years, Geva had several exhibitions of her paintings.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n actress, ballet dancer and choreographer. She was the first wife of dancer/choreographer George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
.
Biography
She was born as Tamara Gevergeyeva (some sources cite her birth name as Sheversheieva Gevergeyeva), the daughter of Levko Gevergeyev, a wealthy manufacturer of church vestments and a patron of avante-garde artists. She shortened her surname to Geva when she came to St. Petersburg, RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Her father was a freethinker
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
and had been raised in the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
faith. Her mother was Swedish. Her parents were not officially married until their daughter was 6. As a child she lived in a huge 18th century house which had a miniature theater and a theater museum. The museum is preserved and is currently known as The State Museum of Theater and Music.
Geva studied ballet with a private teacher, but after the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
she entered the Imperial Theatre School in Maryinsky, when it began to accept older ballet students for night classes. Here she met dancer and impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
, who was teaching ballroom dance
Ballroom dance
Ballroom dance refers to a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world. Because of its performance and entertainment aspects, ballroom dance is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television....
classes. She married Balanchine in 1921 (not 1923 as has been misreported) aged 14; the marriage was dissolved in 1926. She later married American actor John Emery, the former husband of Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...
.
She died, aged 90, on 9 December 1997 at her home in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
from natural causes.
Career
While still in Russia, Geva began appearing professionally in ballet concerts. In 1924, together with Balanchine and Alexandra DanilovaAlexandra Danilova
Aleksandra Dionisyevna Danilova was a Russian-born prima ballerina who became an American citizen....
, Geva defected from the Soviet Russia on a tour to Germany, after Diaghilev had invited them to join the Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, where she danced until 1926. She also appeared in 1925
in a German production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
as Oberon. In 1927, she introduced Balanchine's choreography to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, when she danced two brief solos by him. At the time she was touring with Nikita Balieff
Nikita Balieff
Nikita Balieff , was an Armenian vaudevillian, stage performer, writer, impresario, and director best known as the master of ceremonies and creator of La Chauve-Souris theater group.-Theatrical career begins in Moscow:...
's Chauve-Souris, a touring revue which was composed of Russian emigres.
On Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, Geva appeared in the musicals Three's A Crowd (1930), Flying Colors
Flying Colors (musical)
Flying Colors is a musical revue with a book, lyrics, and music by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz and sketch contributions by George S. Kaufman, Corey Ford, and Charles Sherman....
(1932) and Whoopee (1934). In 1935 she performed with the American Ballet
American Ballet
The American Ballet was the first professional ballet company George Balanchine created in the United States. The company was founded with the help of Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg, managed by Alexander Merovitch and populated by students of Kirstein and Balanchine's School of...
. This was Balanchine's initial company in New York. Geva immersed herself
in film and theater work. In 1936, she was paired with actor Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
in the musical On Your Toes
On Your Toes
On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....
by Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart...
.
For On Your Toes, she choreographed a dramatic "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is a ballet with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by George Balanchine. It occurs near the end of Rodgers and Hart's 1936 Broadway musical comedy On Your Toes. Slaughter is the story of a hoofer who falls in love with a dance hall girl who is then shot and killed...
" sequence and a balletic parody. One reviewer described her performance as magnificent, adding "she can burlesque it with the authority of an artist on holiday". She went on to act in plays that demonstrated her great flexibility as a performer. She was featured in productions of the works of Euripedes, George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, and Jean Paul Sartre. She starred with Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
in the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
premiere of an anti-war play, Idiot's Delight (1938), written by Robert E. Sherwood
Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood...
. She acted in Euripedes' The Trojan Women in New York in 1941, and in the Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
production of Sartre's No Exit in 1947.
In 1953 Geva played the character of a sarcastic acrobat in a New York revival of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Misalliance. The cast included Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
and Richard Kiley. In 1959, Geva and Haila Stoddard
Haila Stoddard
Haila Stoddard was an American actor, producer, writer and director. During her career as an actress, Stoddard appeared in a number of plays, movies, and television series, including sixteen years as Pauline Rysdale in The Secret Storm from 1954 to 1970...
created Come Play With Me a musical comedy with a score penned by Dana Suesse
Dana Suesse
Dana Suesse , full name Nadine Dana Suesse, was an American musician, composer and lyricist.-Biography:While still a child, Suesse toured the Midwest vaudeville circuits with an act centered on dancing and piano playing. During the recital, she would ask the audience for a theme, and then proceed...
that had a short off-Broadway run.
She choreographed the dances for the film Specter of the Rose
Specter of the Rose
Specter of the Rose is a film written and directed by Ben Hecht, starring Judith Anderson, Ivan Kirov, Viola Essen, Michael Chekhov, and Lionel Stander and with choreography by Tamara Geva, and music by George Antheil....
(1946), written by Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
. Her last performance was on screen in Frevel (1984), credited simply as Tamara.
In her later years, Geva had several exhibitions of her paintings.
Filmography
Her English-speaking films:- 1951: an episode of The Web (Golden Secret)
- 1951: an episode of The Adventures of Ellery QueenThe Adventures of Ellery QueenThe Adventures of Ellery Queen is the title of a radio series and four separate television series made from the 1950s through the 1970s. They were based on the fictional character and pseudonymous writer Ellery Queen.-Radio:...
(The Ballet Murder) - 1948: The Gay Intruders as Maria Ivar
- 1946: Specter of the RoseSpecter of the RoseSpecter of the Rose is a film written and directed by Ben Hecht, starring Judith Anderson, Ivan Kirov, Viola Essen, Michael Chekhov, and Lionel Stander and with choreography by Tamara Geva, and music by George Antheil....
choreography only - 1942: Night Plane from Chungking as Countess Olga Karagin
- 1942: Orchestra Wives as Mrs. Beck
- 1937: Manhattan Merry-Go-Round as Madame 'Charlie' Charlizzini
- 1934: Their Big Moment as Madame Lottie Marvo
- 1931: The Girl Habit as Sonja Maloney