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Tamara Toumanova
Tamara Toumanova (March 2, 1919 – May 29, 1996)-American ballerina and actress. Tamara Toumanova’s parents were Georgian Princess Eugenia Tumanishvili and Russian Konstantin Erlampievich Zakharov, a doctor of the Caucasian Military District. Her mother, Princess Eugenia Dimitrievna Toumanishvili was escaping the Bolshevik Revolution from Georgia. Toumanova’s father Konstantin Zakharov  died of infection, and Eugenia gave birth alone to her daughter in the boxcar, speeding across Siberia between Omsk and Harbin, in China. In Harbin Eugenia met her second husband Vladimir Khassidovitch. Then family moved to Cairo. After spending time in refugee camps, the family settled in Paris, where there was a large Russian émigré community. After moving to Paris, Toumanova was given piano lessons and studied ballet with Olga Preobrajenska, who she described as her "first and only permanent teacher" and an "immortal friend". She made her debut at the Paris Opera at  the age of ten in the children's ballet “L’Eventail de Jeanne”. At 13 she was discovered by George Balanchine and she became one of the “baby ballerinas” of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo alongside Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska. Balanchine created the role of the "Young Girl" for Toumanova in his ballet “Cottilon”   in 1932 designed by Christian Bérard; For Toumanova Balanchine made roles in “Mozartiana” in 1933; “Balustrade” in 1941 and then designed the ecstatic second movement adagio of Bizet’s “Palais de Cristal” (“Symphony in C”) on her in Paris in 1947. Tamara Toumanova also warked with Leonide Massine. Toumanova became an international star appearing as a guest artist with many companies such as American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opéra Ballet and London Festival Ballet. Arnold Haskell nicknamed Tamara Toumanova “The Black Pearl of the Russian Ballet”. Tamara Toumanova immigrated with her  family to the United States in 1937 and settled in Los Angeles, California. She made her feature film debut in 1944, in “Days of Glory” with Gregory Peck. The same year she married the film's producer and screen writer Casey Robinson. They divorced on October 13, 1955. In 1953 she played Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova in “Tonight We Sing”.In 1954 she appeared in the biographical musical “Deep In My Heart”, as the French dancer Gaby Deslys. In 1956 she did a dance scene with Gene Kelly in his dance film “Invitation to the Dance”. Iin 1966 she played the lead ballerina in Alfred Hitchcock’s political thriller “Torn Curtain”. In 1970 she played Russian ballerina "Madame Petrova" in Billy Wilder’s “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”. Tamara Toumanova died in Santa Monica, California, on May 29, 1996, aged 77. She was buried next to her mother Eugenia in “Hollywood Forever Cemetery”