Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PANAMA CITY, PANAMA LENGTH: Medium
She had been hospitalized for eight months in Houston and for the last month at a private hospital in Panama City, said Louis Martins, an adviser to President Guillermo Endara and a friend of Dame Margot.
He said she had long been ill but had not wanted Fonteyn people to know she had cancer. "She was very noble. She didn't want people to pity her."
In Houston, she expressed the wish to die in Panama and be buried next to her husband, former diplomat Roberto Arias, at Panama City's Garden of Peace cemetery, Martins said. The funeral will be today.
Martins said Dame Margot was very moved when he visited her at Paitilla Hospital on Sunday to give her a testimonial scroll awarded her by Panama's National Ballet. He received the award in her name during a special performance in her honor Saturday at the National Theater.
Until her retirement in 1979 at the age of 60, Dame Margot was a miracle of timelessness in the mercurial world of ballet.
Her artistry was legendary, once prompting 48 curtain calls for her "Sleeping Beauty" with Sir Robert Helpmann in New York in 1949. Just as legendary was the partnership she formed with Rudolf Nureyev.
Queen Elizabeth II made her a dame - the female equivalent of a knight - in 1956.
"Dame Margot was a lady wonderfully down to earth and yet with an astonishing spiritual grace," said Mikhail Baryshnikov. "I think I never knew anybody like her and very much doubt that I ever will."
Dame Margot told an interviewer that personality is conveyed across the footlights. "It shows through your movement and your dancing. I think if your personality doesn't come through, then you're a little immature as an artist."
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by CNB