Darcey Bussell: Looking for Margot

This is my world.

The world of ballet.

Dance has defined me, giving me such passion and joy.

And here is the dancer who embodies

all that is beautiful about the ballet.

This is Margot Fonteyn.

Every ballerina, including me,

has aspired to be Margot.

They are always trying to find the next Margot Fonteyn.

Margot danced around the world and won everyone's hearts.

She remains the unfading image

of the perfect ballerina.

She was Margot Fonteyn to people who had never been to the ballet.

Deep down, though, I wonder if Margot's magic

might have been a curse as well as a blessing.

I was very miserable. I was really only a dancer.

I was only a ballerina, I wasn't a person.

Margot's search for love took her far away from ballet.

She was drawn into a revolution in a foreign land

and became a nurse to her husband,

ending up barely getting by

on a remote cattle ranch in Panama.

We only ever shared the stage once

and that was under exceptional circumstances.

In 1990, a royal gala fundraiser was held for Margot.

She was the shadow of her former self,

the ballerina we didn't want to forget.

She simply had to keep dancing for the money.

-Tragic.

-Yeah.

Tragic, tragic.

I've discovered there are two Margot Fonteyns.

A world-famous artist adored by all,

who found fame but not fortune.

And a little girl called Peggy,

who loved to dance.

She was Peggy Hookham and she became Margot Fonteyn.

I think she wanted to be Peggy all of her life.

The first stop on my story of Margot Fonteyn is Cambridge.

What happened here would haunt Margot.

This is where, as an 18-year-old,

she first knew what it was

to fall in love with someone and then lose them.

In 1937, Peggy, still getting used to her stage name Margot,

came on tour here with Sadler's Wells Ballet.

Margot describes how she first saw the young man

who eventually would become her husband.

And she says,

"Two dark-haired brothers were dancing the new rumba rhythm

"of a Cuban band.

"The music invaded my mind

"as I stared at their dance.

"That's it. I was in love."

The younger of the two brothers was Roberto Arias, always known as Tito,

the son of the President of Panama.

He was 18, the same age as Margot.

Tito was studying economics and partying hard.

It must have been quite odd for Margot,

seeing all these extravagant men studying, supposedly,

and she was actually working here, performing.

Coming from London and the sort of lifestyle she was leading,

which was pretty disciplined, I think,

and pretty routine and perhaps rather drab,

to come to Cambridge would have been exotic,

and I think would have been romantic.

Cambridge historian Andrew Lownie has found out more

about what kind of person Tito Arias was.

He seems to have been a very exuberant character

-and someone who was able to seduce women quite easily.

-Yeah.

So, you know, it's perhaps not surprising she fell for him.

But it sounds like it was a fling for him,

-but perhaps slightly more important for her.

-Yeah.

The ballet company came to Cambridge twice in the '30s.

Each time, Margot was whisked off her feet

into Tito's glamorous world of white-tie balls,

cocktail parties and intimate dinners.

And then Tito dropped Margot.

Much later in her memoir,

Margot writes about going back to London on the train from Cambridge

and how deeply she felt about Tito.

"I just wished he would take me away with him and look after me forever."

She'd been working so hard and performing so much,

and all the time part of her just wanted to run away.

Why was the woman who became the world's star ballerina

ready to give it up almost before it began?

Why did Margot want to run away,

and what did she want to run away from?

In Putney, South London,

is someone who's found more answers.

-Oh, wow.

-All this stuff in it.

-Look at all that!

'Meredith Daneman is Margot's biographer.

'She's studied her life from the beginning.'

She was a very endearing little girl.

It was her smile, I think, looking at lots of young pictures,

-that you are taken in...

-Well, it was the sun coming out.

You know, that extraordinary thing,

that radiance of a smile

that comes over a completely solemn face.

'Meredith says Margot was always searching for love and family.

'Ballet would become a substitute.'

Wow, her curls.

I think the thing to really understand Margot

is to understand that her mother was illegitimate.

And illegitimacy in those days was such a stigma.

'Desperate to give her daughter a better start,

'Margot's mother Hilda made Margot the focus of all her ambitions.'

'While researching Margot, Meredith came across this -

'Hilda's private notebook.

'It's full of unseen details about Hilda's background

'and what this meant for Margot.'

As well as an Irish mother, Hilda had a Brazilian father.

-Really?

-This was the most extraordinary thing,

because that's where Margot's very, very exotic looks came from.

The writing is tiny, but it's really, really worth...

Basically, when you know the mum, you know the daughter.

-It's pretty much so.

-Yeah.

Much of Margot's early childhood was spent overseas.

Her father's job took them to China.

Family life came second, though, for Margot's mother.

What came first was Margot becoming a professional ballet dancer.

It's interesting. It says in Hilda's notebook...

"Even when we went on holiday," wrote Hilda,

"the first thing we did was find a dance teacher."

So even at such a young age,

they were treating her like a professional,

making sure that she had every coach there waiting for her.

In 1933, Hilda decided 14-year-old Margot,

then still Peggy Hookham,

was ready to audition for a place in a ballet company.

She pulled her out of school, came back to England,

and took Margot by bus to Sadler's Wells.

I'm taking the same journey.

It says here,

"It was not easy to leave my father in Shanghai,

"but my mother wanted to give me the opportunity to dance

"and so we took the bus up Rosebery Avenue."

Now, my mother didn't want me to dance,

but here they're organising everything

to give her that opportunity to have a career.

This bus trip would change Margot's life.

For a young girl entering the ballet world, it was perfect timing.

Sadler's Wells, the company that became the Royal Ballet,

was in those days barely a dozen dancers.

To take the company forward, they were looking for a star ballerina,

and found one in Margot Fonteyn.

Margot was in the right place at the right time,

and she also had exactly what it took.

Here at the Royal Opera House,

they're in dress rehearsals for Giselle,

one of Margot's early principal roles.

Choreographer Sir Peter Wright actually worked with Margot,

and he's got some ideas about why, from early on, Margot stood out.

You mustn't blink - this is very short -

of Margot doing her first, first Giselle at 17.

Oh, my. Oh, it's the first act.

Oh, yes.

She's so bouncy.

Yes, very. She has that energy to her.

It must have been quite daunting.

It's a very hard ballet.

It is. Lots of jumping.

It kills your calves.

-I just remember my calves always being ruined.

-Yes, yes.

One thing you said to me is, when you first see Margot on stage,

is her proportions.

Absolutely. Perfect, perfect proportions.

That's why she could balance so well.

-Do you think, really?

-I do, yes.

I'm sure, because everything was just right.

Just as she found her centre, she was there.

So she had perfect shoulders, neck...

-Everything.

-..length of her body...

Length of leg, all that.

When she took her balance, she just went "tch" and stayed.

-She didn't go...

-Fumble, fumble, fumble.

Never moved.

Becoming a principal ballerina

did not just happen overnight.

For two years after joining the company,

Margot toiled her way through the ranks, day by day.

Margot's mother was always with her,

while her father stayed in Shanghai

and her brother was already in boarding school.

When her parents divorced,

the ballet company became Margot's family.

Margot danced Swan Lake in 1935,

when she was only 16.

It was her first principal role, a milestone for every young dancer.

I'd like to show you a little of what it takes

to tackle a classic like this one,

the challenge Margot faced.

This is Julia Roscoe from the Royal Ballet,

who has never done the role,

alongside Derek Deane, a Swan Lake expert,

and who also coached me.

And up.

That's it. Don't forget a nice little swish.

Leave the elbows coming up first, yes?

Swish there.

Swish, up.

Bourree, bourree, bourree, and one-two.

Do you know...? Stop, stop, stop, stop.

I can remember one visual thing that Margot always said,

which was so lovely, and then my coach, Donald,

is that it was always, when we bourreed, we went one-two.

-Yeah?

-OK.

-One-two.

So they don't come out and go, "Ugh!"

All right?

Remember your back.

And up. And up. And up.

Nice.

One. Use your head, use your head.

Good girl.

You've only got four.

And then one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, down.

One, bang. Good girl.

Over the years, Margot would dance Swan Lake many, many times.

Her mother, Hilda Hookham,

never forgot Margot's first performance.

Hilda wrote in her notebook about Margot's first Swan Lake.

"I sat in the front row of the circle.

"We were literally trembling.

"She did well, thank heavens,

"and almost before the curtain came down

"we were rushing up the long stairway

"and were first in the bar for a quick brandy."

I have heard people say that her first Swan Lakes were boring.

Probably when Margot first did Swan Lake,

I think she was, more than likely, taught the steps,

she was put in a white tutu and on she went,

do you know what I mean?

-Yeah.

-So I think nowadays, I think there is a lot more time,

a lot more coaching time for dancers.

Margot's gift, rather than pure technique,

was how she interpreted the role.

She writes about how liberating it was, after years of sacrifice,

to dance in front of an audience for the first time.

This, she said, is the real thing.

Margot was entering a world where she would be adored by the public

and shaped by her surrogate ballet family.

The company would decide everything about her future,

including her name.

The transformation from Margot's old life as Peggy Hookham was complete

when she was told to change her name

to something more suitable for a ballet star.

Peggy - or Margaret - became Margot, which sounded more exotic,

and Hilda chose Fonteyn

from her own rather Latin-sounding maiden name, Fontes.

When I started out, there was the same pressure

to have a name that was right for a ballerina.

I knew that a lot of people changed their name.

Nobody liked Bussell at all, even though it was a French name.

It's a good name, a strong name.

My first director, he said, Darcey, we've got to change that name.

And I was like, "I'm sorry. "Why? Why?" You know?

My mother was very proud of my name.

But he said, "Bussell is not right.

"We'll change it to something like Russell."

And I was like, "There's no difference.

-"I'm going to keep my name."

-It's so dull compared.

-No, Bussell has such a spring to it, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

Margot was given her break so early because she was spotted by

the most fearsome ballet mistress of them all, Ninette de Valois,

founder of Sadler's Wells.

Known as Madam, she trained with the world-class Russians.

She was on the lookout for dancers

to take British ballet to the same heights.

Dame Beryl Grey was here at Sadler's Wells in the 1930s.

Ninette had this very clear vision

of where she wanted to go,

and I think she had got her eye on Margot and thought,

"Now, this is my chance to produce someone from my company

"to lead my company."

'The funny thing is, I actually met Madam a few times

'when I was a ballet student.'

-It was the early '90s.

-She'd mellowed.

-Oh, yeah!

She had mellowed, and so I had a very nice conversation with her,

but I knew all these stories about her,

how powerful and strong she was and how committed she was to the ballet.

Oh, totally. Nothing happened by chance.

She said she planned everything.

What do you think Dame Ninette saw in Margot Fonteyn?

I always say Margot was a wonderful example of what you can do

if you know that something's wrong

and if you're determined to improve it.

-She just worked until she had a perfect body.

-Yeah.

And she was always very...

..gentle and courteous.

She took direction always.

She always did everything that was asked of her.

Madam understood all great ballet companies need great choreographers.

The first, Frederick Ashton,

was known for creating some of the best work for the company.

An early ballet was The Rio Grande,

with Margot in the lead role aged 17.

The music for The Rio Grande was actually very jazzy.

I think it was a rhythm that Margot would have responded to,

because I think she was a natural in that sort of way,

in picking up rhythms and styles.

The company's musical director, Constant Lambert,

wrote the music for The Rio Grande.

His biographer, Stephen Lloyd,

has looked into the close relationship

Lambert developed with Margot Fonteyn.

When Margot joined the company

she felt that she was a bit of an ignoramus,

and that's a word she used herself,

and Constant made it a point to educate her, to...

And he became her tutor, her guide and educator,

by showing her what books she should be reading,

what paintings she should be looking at.

Margot, who missed out on an education to be a dancer,

was looking for someone to guide her personally

as well as professionally.

Her heart, she writes, was as soft as butter.

She was working in a very close-knit company

where all sorts of relationships,

heterosexual and homosexual, were going on,

and so I think she grew up fast.

The married Constant Lambert,

known for having affairs with dancers,

became Margot's long-term lover.

Margot believed one day he might leave his wife for her.

Hilda has this to say about Constant Lambert,

"He is brilliant and charming, much older than Margot.

"I was pretty worried at first, but then said nothing."

When Constant finally divorced his wife, he married someone else.

So great was Margot's sense of betrayal,

she went through all the books he gave her, one by one.

If there was a note from Constant in the front of the book,

she tore out the page.

In 1937, Margot was picked out from Sadler's Wells

for this rarely seen early test film for the BBC.

By now she was regularly dancing

all the main classical roles for the company

and her future seemed assured.

AIR-RAID SIREN

Then, in 1939, war was declared.

The stages went dark for theatre and opera.

What would this mean for ballet and for Margot?

Margot's war is recorded here,

at the Royal Ballet Junior School at White Lodge in Richmond Park,

where the archives are housed.

This is where I studied as a child.

Everyone here knows about Margot Fonteyn.

By tradition, the ballet pupils touch her statue each morning

for inspiration.

It's part of Royal Ballet history,

how Margot and the company were undaunted by war.

They put on their tutus and danced for Britain.

Anna Meadmore is the archivist here.

It was very tough.

It was performing nine, ten times a week, matinees, evenings.

There were very few men in the company.

I know it was a small company.

Also, all the orchestra were off serving in the national services,

so they had to do everything to two pianos.

Basically, it turned them into hardened professionals,

that's what it did.

After the war, because they had become such a household name,

-and you can see these lovely postcards of Margot.

-So they...

People would collect postcards.

They really were like film stars, these dancers.

-Wow. They're beautiful.

-Yes.

So they were given the new...

-Well, they were given the Opera House.

-They were.

They were invited to become the resident company at the Opera House.

The opening night was in February, 1946,

the royal gala performance of The Sleeping Beauty.

Margot, now nearly 27, danced the principal role.

Some of the reviews afterwards said,

"Glorious, wonderful, peace has come again.

"This is the start of the quality of life returning to our lives."

People would say that when she burst onto the stage

as the young 16-year-old Aurora at her birthday party,

there was a sort of joy that emanated from her.

Margot's performance showed the nation

British ballet was here to stay.

Don't travel.

Hold.

'I'm here in the Margot Fonteyn Studio at the Royal Opera House

'with Donald MacLeary, who actually danced The Sleeping Beauty

'with Margot, and Lauren Cuthbertson,

'one of the Royal Ballet's brightest stars.'

'Donald coached me for many years.

'Together we will show you how Margot shone

'in that wonderful opening scene.'

Good. That's much better.

You see how I can see everything?

When you first think of Margot Fonteyn,

what's your first image that comes into your mind?

Possibly the biography we found at a car-boot sale

when I was about sort of seven or eight.

Was that one of your first...?

I can just see her doing Ondine on the front of a really old book.

And she was actually the only ballerina I knew

until I arrived at White Lodge and I found out who you were!

So really, it's very simple -

she was the only ballerina I knew

who had been living this dream life.

-She really is... You know, she's an icon.

-Yes.

-It's that face, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I always just think of her face, I don't know why,

-but it kind of lights up.

-Yeah.

I was just going to say that.

She had... She had an aura.

She always had...

You know, it was the eyes and the smile.

It wasn't put on, it was from here.

Margot was able to achieve that every time,

and all the way through her career.

Whatever age she was, she was able to suddenly...

-Become.

-..become that person straightaway.

If you go like that, they think, "Oh, she's looking at me."

-You know you always told me, "Stare out the public."

-Yes.

-Look straight at them.

-Yes, look straight at them.

-Don't go fidgety.

-You do that really well.

-I've seen you do that.

-No, no, no.

Good.

Watch the head on the fourth.

-Shoulders down.

-Focus.

From now on, all productions of The Sleeping Beauty

would be measured up against Margot Fonteyn.

Even so, Ninette de Valois and the company wanted more from Margot,

to use her to take British ballet even further.

Now it was time for the ballet to go international.

I've come to New York,

following in the footsteps of Margot's first American tour

in 1949.

Traffic was at a standstill on Broadway

as the most sophisticated audience in the world took their seats

in the Metropolitan Opera House.

Margot writes in her memoir about how many times

she dreaded letting the company down.

She says,

"On countless first nights of new ballets, of London seasons,

"in foreign capitals, on New York openings,

"the same terror has overtaken me.

"Without it, I suppose, I would be no good."

Kevin O'Hare is the current director of the Royal Ballet.

He believes Margot, now aged 30,

was the perfect person

to carry the fortunes of the company across the Atlantic.

She was just that total superstar, you know,

that created a bit of magic every time she came on stage.

Everybody always said there was something about her stagecraft,

that she knew where to look, to show the whites of her eyes,

or how she smiled, which I think, you know,

I don't think you plan. That just happens, doesn't it?

Some of those things happen naturally.

And probably, doing all those roles really early on,

cutting her teeth and touring around the country

and doing them a lot of times,

really helped her hone that stagecraft.

But it was natural, it wasn't forced,

but it was just she'd had that experience.

And I think she even fell on that first entrance.

-Oh, did she really?

-Yes. And everybody sort of...

The gasp went. And then, of course, the history books say

she pulled the house down,

and that really cemented her reputation

as a leading ballerina of the world,

but also helped cement the reputation of the Royal Ballet

because that was the first big, big tour.

There are still people around

who remember Margot Fonteyn's opening night in Manhattan.

Robert Gottlieb is a publisher and dance critic.

The first time I saw Margot was in her great entrance

in Act One of Sleeping Beauty.

And that was really all it took for me,

because she was so glorious, so enchanting,

and brilliant as well as charming.

Why did Margot love New York so much?

I think it excited her, and I think she enjoyed...

..the word adoration may be too strong,

but the impact she had on people.

You know, I think New York was somehow more celebrity-conscious.

-She was Margot Fonteyn to people who had never been to the ballet.

-Yeah.

Margot went to America a prima ballerina

and came back an icon.

Margot turned up on the front cover of Time magazine.

Quite rare to have a ballerina on the front of Time magazine.

Enormously rare - it's normally heads of state.

I know. And it's beautiful, it's like a painting.

What I find, straightaway,

is look how confident and strong she looks,

from being this very gentle, caring lady that she was.

Yes, you're right. I hadn't thought of that.

She is very much on top of her game there, isn't she?

Yeah, but showing the whites of her eyes.

Yet despite the joy and acclaim of being on stage,

ballet wasn't making Margot truly happy.

There was no regular man in Margot's life.

At galas and first nights,

she was often accompanied by her mother.

Did you ever feel insecure about being in your middle 30s

and not married?

-Oh, yes, miserable.

-Did you?

Yes, I was very miserable and I was also very...

I was really only a dancer.

I was only a ballerina, I wasn't a person by that time,

because I needed very much to know who I was.

The real Margot Fonteyn was about to be revealed.

In September 1953, on the company's third visit to New York,

a card was left in Margot's dressing room

from Tito Arias,

the young man Margot first met 16 years earlier in Cambridge

before the war.

Now Tito was a Panamanian representative

to the United Nations in New York.

He was well aware of Margot's new-found celebrity.

Tito told Margot he was married with three children,

and getting a divorce.

Later, Margot wrote, "I understood I did love Tito,

"yet my love was not what I expected.

"In Tito's company, I felt complete".

Margot's mother, Hilda,

did not believe Tito Arias was the right man for Margot.

Lift and lift higher.

New York ballet teacher Ken Ludden knew Hilda well.

She did not like him.

She didn't approve of him.

Hilda wanted the best for Margot,

and there was a lot of talk all the time.

Tito was a Latin male,

and a world leader,

and he ran with the boys.

Was it the attention that he brought to the family, or to Margot?

No, no, it was the fact that he had been married and had children,

and he'd divorced a woman to go with Margot, and she just was like,

"That's not going to do for my daughter."

For the first time in her life,

Margot ignored her mother's advice.

When Tito popped the question, she said yes.

Margot and Tito married in February 1955 in Paris.

Tito was then created Panama's Ambassador to Britain,

with Margot the perfect Ambassador's wife.

They were London's new power couple.

Thanks to Margot,

the ballet company was established by Royal Charter

as the Royal Ballet in 1956.

Margot was made a Dame of the British Empire the same year.

She was the Royal Ballet's greatest asset,

essential to its reputation.

Margot was definitely the beating heart of the Royal Ballet.

She was at the centre of everything.

And so, of course, for all of us, she was the person we looked to.

Monica Mason would become the director of the Royal Ballet

after joining the company in 1958 as a dancer.

-She was playing the Panamanian Ambassadress...

-Yes.

..which required her to be travelling with him

and entertaining enormously.

And people used to say that they didn't know how she coped

coming to class every day

when she'd been up till two in the morning

at some big do.

But somehow she kept the two worlds apart.

And then, a few years into the marriage,

Margot's two worlds collided...

..when Tito announced his resignation as Ambassador.

He was embarking on a daring plan for the future of Panama.

But during that time Tito was plotting his revolution,

and at the end of three years he resigned as Ambassador

because he was making a revolution.

Really it was against the chief of police

more than against the government of the time...

..and it was quite an exciting event.

Margot wanted to be part of every aspect of Tito's life.

As the secret plot became a reality, she begged to be by his side.

In the early morning of Wednesday 22nd April, 1959,

Tito and Margot sailed into Panama harbour.

His boat, the Nola, was full of guns and men.

Margot writes in her memoir how she loved, as a child,

coming to the beach with the wind in her hair and feeling free.

Coming on that boat with Tito must have been so much of that.

It must have been an adventure.

This, though, was no childhood adventure.

When Margot stepped on board Tito's boat

she chose to become an armed revolutionary -

not the role ballerinas usually play.

Here in Panama, I'm able to make more sense

of why Margot risked everything to support her husband,

and why she put such faith in what Tito was trying to do.

He was a guy who believed in liberty,

who believed in social programmes,

who believed in humanity.

'Daniel Gonzales is a Panamanian historian and writer.

'He believes Tito and his family

'wanted to liberate the people of Panama from poverty

'through healthcare and education,

'and by loosening the country's ties with the United States.'

I think that the dreams of the Arias in Panama, is, was...

..to see Panama free, OK?

Their goal was the freedom for Panama.

Those dreams for a better Panama would come to nothing.

Betrayed by a group of fishermen,

Tito and Margot never made it ashore.

Tito went on the run,

hoping he would return one day as president.

Margot was arrested.

It says here, in this Panama-American paper,

what started as an adventure for Margot

ended with her being in jail.

Diplomats from the British Embassy were appalled to discover

that Dame Margot Fonteyn was attempting, in their words,

to overthrow the government of Panama.

I have here...

..the Ambassador's letter of when he went to see her in jail,

and it says,

"She knew that her husband was gun-running,

"she knew that he was accompanied by rebels,

"and at one point she used her yacht

"to decoy government boats and aircraft

"away from the direction her husband was taking.

"I do not regard her conduct as fitting in any British subject,

"let alone one who has been highly honoured by Her Majesty The Queen."

Margot's actions were embarrassing for Britain,

yet her intentions were honourable.

She wanted to help Panama.

I think that, in this case,

she just showed her strength, you know, her love for this country,

her love for her husband, you know?

You must be proud of her because of that.

I'm proud of her. We are proud of her.

When Dame Margot arrived home safely, it wasn't surprising,

in view of all that had happened in Panama,

that there should be a tremendous demand for her story.

Almost overwhelmed by questions, she nevertheless held her own.

Did you know about it before?

That's what you're trying to say, did I know about it before?

Well, I'm not answering that question.

Did you know that your husband knew about it?

I'm not answering that question either.

Did you carry a gun in Panama?

I won't answer that question either,

because you can guess whether I carried a gun or not!

That would be much more interesting.

What I'm saying is that if I had a chance to see my husband,

I would go immediately.

They said, "If I had a chance to see him",

well, if I had a chance would mean that I were able to get into Panama.

It's amazing how composed Margot seems.

She's just got out of jail.

Tito would eventually return to London with no charges against him.

Margot would not get off so lightly.

People were killed in that coup,

and in fact it was a great embarrassment

to Parliament in England, and to the powers that be,

and to the Royal Ballet.

Margot was meant to have been the First Lady of Panama.

Now she was a disgraced ballerina,

preparing for retirement and the end of her career.

She was this extraordinary star.

She was this extraordinary star,

but the thing was

that after that time,

the Royal Ballet sort of distanced themselves from her.

It wounded her dreadfully.

For Margot, now over 40, to regain her position

as Britain's prima ballerina seemed unthinkable.

And then the unthinkable happened,

made possible by this man,

Rudolf Nureyev.

A 23-year-old dancer who defected from Russia

and danced his way into the Swinging '60s.

Nureyev on stage was described as a wild animal

let loose in a drawing room.

When he got to London after defecting,

Nureyev stunned the Royal Ballet

by announcing he would dance only with Margot Fonteyn.

In Russia, he said young men learnt their craft from older ballerinas.

Margot asked Tito what he thought, and Tito agreed.

After nearly three years away from the Royal Ballet,

it was time to get back on stage.

I didn't really want to dance with him.

I accepted because I thought, well,

in life you have to take your courage with you,

you can't just avoid things

that you think are frightening.

You have to go out and do it, you must...

So I went out and danced with this boy

who was 19 or 20 years younger than me

and leapt ten foot high,

and the minute he came on the stage everybody was going to watch him.

And I thought, "Who is going to look at me,

"when this boy is leaping about like this all over the place?"

And, anyway, I took my courage,

and I went out on the stage with this phenomenon,

and somehow or other it worked.

It turned out dancing with a younger man

was just what Margot and the world of ballet needed.

Rudy would make Margot an even greater star than ever,

and I have an insight into how that happened.

Everyone wanted to photograph Margot and Rudy,

and I've been invited to look at some photographs

that have never been seen before.

I'm on my way to meet Patricia Whatley

from the University of Dundee,

where the Michael Peto photo collection is held.

These behind-the-scenes photos

reveal why Fonteyn and Nureyev

made such a magical combination.

What's so rare about these pictures,

what I love that Michael has been able to achieve,

-is they're all rehearsal shots, they're not staged at all.

-No.

But what you notice straightaway...

is their physicality together.

They're kind of in line,

they wouldn't have had much time to rehearse,

but there's symmetry.

-The symmetry there is amazing.

-Yes, it's beautiful.

It's like their bodies were so well matched, and proportions,

that why it works, the partnership works,

so well is because physically they're so well matched.

Yes, that is so beautiful, the way he's holding her,

-and they almost are like one.

-Yeah.

-He's going to take her off her feet.

-Yes.

And I'm sure it felt like that for her.

But you can see just that they understood

each other's body straightaway.

Ronald Hynd was with the Royal Ballet alongside Fonteyn and Nureyev

as they rehearsed their first shows together.

So, how did Margot cope with Rudy?

Well, generally she coped with him.

He was a decent partner, but not always.

I've seen him with her up in the air,

carried off and drop her, because he wanted to go

to prepare for his solo.

I mean, that sums up a great deal of that relationship.

But...

..she stood up to him, to a point.

He reduced her to tears many times.

You don't reduce Dame Margot Fonteyn to tears,

but he did and she took it,

because it was a wonderful extension for her closing career.

Everyone always wonders

if there was more to Fonteyn's relationship with Rudy

than purely professional.

Marguerite Porter, who understudied many of Margot's roles in the '60s,

believes Nureyev met an unfulfilled need in Margot.

I think she thought of him as her little boy,

her naughty, outrageous little boy.

It's what we all did in the end.

You know, you forgave him his tantrums, and his...

And he really did lose control completely.

I have danced with many Russians myself,

but Nureyev was really something else.

He was exciting, he was demanding,

he was difficult,

he was wonderful...

..and I think that anybody who ever really knew him...

..would all say, "I loved him and adored him,"

despite his monstrous behaviour at times.

When their first programme together was announced,

Giselle at the Royal Opera House in February 1962,

30,000 people applied for tickets,

eight times more than were actually on sale.

A series of more than 20 different ballets followed together,

with hundreds of performances around the world.

Even Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull came to the ballet.

I think that he brought young people to see ballet,

and to see classical ballet,

which at that time... He came in the '60s.

Now, that was not a time when young people would normally think

of going to see a classical ballet like Swan Lake.

And I think Nureyev did an enormous amount,

because he had like a James Dean image somehow,

and he brought this into a world which those people

would never have thought of going to.

Margot was back as the face of the Royal Ballet.

However, all was not well at home.

While Tito never gave up his ambitions in Panama,

the failure of the coup turned his weakness for women

into compulsive philandering.

Was it right, Marguerite,

that Margot was actually ready to leave Tito?

I think if you're in a relationship

with somebody who is unfaithful from time to time,

and your worlds are so very separate...

..I think there probably were times in her life when she thought,

"I can't cope with this any more, I'm out of here."

In 1964, Tito was finally elected to congress in Panama.

His campaign was funded by the money Margot made dancing with Nureyev.

And then the most shocking thing happened.

A rival tried to kill Tito.

At the moment when Margot was at the height of her return to ballet...

..Tito was paralysed from the neck down,

unable to do anything for himself.

At the time, Michael Brown was the dresser at the Royal Ballet.

-We did a season at Drury Lane, I think it was 1964 or 1965.

-Yes.

We did a summer season there for six weeks,

and it was the same time that Tito, her husband, was shot.

-Oh, God.

-The attempted assassination.

I mean, we were all shocked, everybody was shocked,

and do you know, Margot Fonteyn,

she commuted between London and Panama,

and she was scheduled to do either four or five shows a week.

Really? She was trying to fit all of that in?

Yes, she did, to be with her husband,

and she'd get back on a plane,

come back into London, go straight on the stage with Rudolf -

this was at Drury Lane - and this was for six weeks.

When this, you know, massive tragedy happened,

I think that it drew her closer, in a way,

because she had...

she wanted, she always needed to be needed,

and suddenly, in this situation, he needed her.

I must admit I never saw in Margot, or Tito, an ounce,

an ounce of negativity or self-pity.

Hilda Hookham said Tito became the child Margot did not have,

someone who could never leave her.

And yet Tito's injuries meant expensive medical care

for the rest of his life, paid for by Margot.

There would be no choice -

Margot would have to continue dancing,

all the way through her 50s.

Well, that was the story of her life, wasn't it?

Don't give in, just keep going, whatever horror fate throws at you.

And then I think the responsibility is to keep dancing,

just to keep dancing,

because of the terrible accident that happened to her husband,

and she simply had to keep dancing for the money.

-Tragic.

-Yeah.

-Tragic, tragic.

That's when I saw her in the physio in New York.

And I went out to have a rub down or something,

they had two beds there like that, and I lay down on one.

It was head to toe, I lay down, and I looked at the feet

and I went, "Oh, my God, whose feet are those?"

And Margot shot up, and she said,

"That's where I've had my nervous breakdown."

-In her feet! Oh, my goodness.

-They were a mess.

But you would never have known.

Because she wouldn't have complained.

She would not have complained.

So continually I'm about to retire,

and then there's something very exciting that I want to do

and I think, "It would be stupid just to miss that.

"I've clung on so long,

"why not cling on a little bit longer and do that?"

You do think about retirement, do you?

Yes, yes. Well, naturally, I mean, one has to think about it.

Margot danced more than 20 years longer than I did.

Astonishing, and yet such a toll on her body.

And then she finally accepted she could go on no longer.

Her last official appearance in May 1979, aged 60,

was choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton.

Do you believe she managed her career well?

She managed her career beautifully,

except for the fact that she just danced for far too long.

Which was sad for anybody who saw her in the latter days,

because you wouldn't have seen what she was really like.

She didn't mean to be an old ballerina.

APPLAUSE

Most ballet dancers, when they step down,

keep a connection with the only world they have ever known

by coaching or teaching.

When Margot stopped dancing, she wanted something different.

When she retired,

she wasn't focusing on retiring,

she was focusing on the road forward.

She was focusing on being able to do the things

she always wanted to do and never could,

to be around Tito all the time.

I'm going back to Panama

to see how Margot chose to live when she gave up ballet.

She spent the last years of her life with Tito...

..in a former cow barn with no telephone, in the middle of nowhere.

Margot appears to have loved it.

Margot wrote that this was the happiest time in her life.

I just can't believe it,

because this is so far away from anything that she knew.

A better life for her daughter

was all her mother ever wanted for Margot...

..and yet in 1988, when, aged 93, Hilda died,

Margot was penniless.

All the money she made from her international career

as a dancer was gone.

This is Margot's accounts book from the farm,

and the detail she writes here.

There's something here saying,

"Monday 17th, food, 11."

There's even something that says

"To clear overdraft, 16.52."

"Petrol 30."

And then, if I go to the end...

"Repair wheelchair tyre" at 1.

Everything has gone into this.

I just can't imagine our great British icon of a ballerina

having to do this.

Tito died, heavily in debt, in 1989.

Margot now had nothing to live for.

She wrote, "I cannot believe I have lost Tito forever.

"I need him too much."

Margot would come back to England one last time.

When the Royal Ballet heard she was living in poverty abroad and alone,

and reluctant to seek help, they said something must be done.

And that's when my life as a dancer

and the life of Margot Fonteyn coincided.

I'm here at the Royal Opera House,

and in 1990 there was a beautiful tribute gala for Margot Fonteyn.

It was the one time we shared the stage together,

when she came on at the end.

It was Romeo And Juliet.

I had a small soloist role.

When Margot arrived, we were all shocked by how fragile she was.

I remember I was in the grand tier,

and I saw this little, tiny figure

come into the box, and it just broke my heart.

I remember weeping buckets of tears, just uncontrollable tears...

..because she was so frail.

You could sense that this was the last time we were going to see her.

It was a farewell, really, and it was...

Oh, it was unbelievable.

I think the whole company was...

Well, what can I say?

I think you suddenly realise what an extraordinary person she was then.

It was the end of a great lady.

Margot went back to Panama after the gala.

One year later, she died from cancer aged 71.

I've been allowed to come and see where Margot Fonteyn

has been laid to rest, and I have to say

I was really expecting a churchyard,

and it's an underground crypt.

Coming here, I think I have finally understood.

For every dancer, no matter how amazing your career,

there is more to life than ballet.

Being adored by your audience, however long it goes on,

it's only part of the story.

Looking back on her life, Margot wrote...

"The demands of my career carried me far away from my true self..."

"..as though in a great arc."

It seems to me, more than anything,

Margot Fonteyn wanted someone to love.

I think people always believe

that Margot should have been laid to rest in England,

but now, being here in Panama and seeing where she is,

it all makes sense.

She wanted to be with Tito.