March 17, 1938– Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев
I remember my mother sitting me down and explaining who he was when he defected from the USSR in 1961. If Rudolph Nureyev‘s story had been already been made in to a film, it would have been a preposterously pedantic piece directed by Ken Russell. It would be nearly unbelievable as fiction.
Nureyev grew up in the USSR in extreme poverty during WW II, and yet, somehow he had this sterling single-mindedness of spirit and strength to get himself out of his small town and flee to the West. Nureyev played a role in so many of the major historical and cultural events of the 20th century; his life was absolutely Forrest Gump-ian.
I knew and understood who he was from an early age. His image was seared into my young teenage consciousness by a photo on the cover of After Dark Magazine (you kids probably don’t remember After Dark. It was the best friend a boy in the closet could have).
Nureyev was the friend of Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Kennedy, and Madonna. Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev personally tried to thwart his career. He was the very pretty face of the Cold War, an icon of the 1960’s sexual revolution, and a representative of the new popularization of celebrity personality as high culture. He was lordly, lusty, obsessive and opinionated. Nureyev was one of the 20th century’s true geniuses and the life he lived is a record of that era.
Nureyev consorted with royalty and with gay hustlers. He was a dancing contradiction: defiant of authority, but an unmatched disciplinarian in the studio, needy and nonchalant, pious and promiscuous, cruel and charitable.
Nureyev had an intimate, intriguing, tumultuous affair with Erik Bruhn, the very beautiful blond Danish ballet star a decade older than Nureyev. He remained the great love of Nureyev’s life even after their relationship ended.
Back in the aughts, I supervised fifteen 20-32 year olds, several who were gay, and when I tried to explain what he meant to our culture, not one of them had even heard of Rudolph Nureyev. Crazy, because it was just a few decades ago that he was everywhere & now he seems nearly forgotten, probably because dance is that most ephemeral of art forms.
Thousands of screaming fans used to wait for him at the stage door after his performances. Nureyev was on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week. Like Nijinsky, he was a dance star and a pop star.
That film of his life will have to feature a classic suspense sequence: while dancing with Kirov Ballet, the Communist Party and the KGB didn’t trust Nureyev’s political loyalty, plus he angered them by associating too freely with Westerners while the Kirov Ballet was on tour. He was at the Paris airport with the Kirov Ballet, ready to fly with them to London, when he learned that he was suddenly being sent back to the USSR. Flanked by KGB agents, Nureyev made an urgent appeal for help to a Paris friend, Pierre Lacotte. Lacotte brought in another friend, Clara Saint, who rushed to the airport. Posing as an adoring girlfriend, she convinced the KGB agents to let her say goodbye to Nureyev.
While kissing his cheeks, she whispered the plan into his ear. Then she rushed away and got the French airport police, telling them that a famous Russian dancer wanted to stay in France. The police agreed to protect Nureyev if he could get away from the KGB and into their custody. They accompanied Saint into the airport bar where the KGB was guarding Nureyev. She approached him one last time, whispering that he needed to get to the police across the room. Nureyev bolted from his chair and leaped to the bar, a distance of a few yards. He yelled: “I want to stay in France!!!”. The KGB agents lunged after him. The Paris police, as promised, protected him.
That literal leap to freedom made Nureyev famous, but his stardom really came from his impassioned, impetuous, impulsive, inspiring, intense dancing. Male ballet dancers in that era were virile and vigorous, but they were deferential to their female partners. Nureyev gave the audiences animal attraction, allure, and astonishing sexuality onstage. As a young gay guy, I was cold-cocked and riveted by Nureyev’s hip, flamboyant charms.
“The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop.”
Nureyev took his final bow in 1993, taken by complications from HIV. He was just 54 years old. Newsweek Magazine ran its second Nureyev cover with the headline: “AIDS & The Arts: A Lost Generation.”
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