Maria Tallchief, 1963, first Native American prima ballerina, in costume for The Firebird, photo by Jack Mitchell. She was born in Oklahoma (Osage name:
Ki He Kah Stah Tsa) but moved with her family to Los Angeles to see if she and her sister Marjorie could be a dancer in the movies. She was cast in Presenting Lily Mars, a Judy Garland vehicle, but she didn’t enjoy the work. At age seventeen she moved to New York and got a job with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (which, despite its name, was by that time an American company) because she could dance but also because she had a passport. Many of the dancers with the Ballet Russe were Russian emigrants without passports who therefore could not tour in other countries. Later, performing in New York, the Times’ critic noted, “She has an easy brilliance that smacks of authority rather than bravura.“
