This Is Your Life: Marie Rambert

Dame Marie RAMBERT DBE (1888-1982)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Marie Rambert, ballet teacher and former dancer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the print room of the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill, London, having been led to believe she was there for a television interview.

Marie, who was born in Warsaw, Poland, studied dance at the Dalcroze College in Paris, where she met Diaghilev, who invited her to join the Ballets Russes in Berlin. There, she worked with Nijinsky and performed in the corps de ballet before moving to the UK in 1914.

She settled in London, where she established a ballet school in 1920 and her own company in 1926, Ballet Rambert, the first ballet company in Britain. Having established the Mercury Theatre with her husband, Ashley Dukes, Marie became one of the great pioneers of modern British ballet, inspiring countless dancers, choreographers and designers.

"Oh! Heavens above!"

programme details...

Edition No: 185
Subject No: 186
Broadcast live: Mon 26 Feb 1962
Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
Venue: BBC Television Theatre
Series: 7
Edition: 22

on the guest list...

Tamara Karsavina
Harold Turner
Denise du Chartre
Lea Hardy Verneuil
Lydia Sokolova
Frederick Ashton
Suzette Morfield
Sally Gilmour
Belinda Wright
Angela - daughter
Lulu - daughter
Peter Scott
John Gilpin
Antony Tudor
Joyce Graham
Celia Franca

production team...

Researcher: Nickola Sterne
Writer: Nickola Sterne
Director: David Croft
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

A Dancer's Life

from ballet to ballroom

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Peter Scott

Marie Rambert This Is Your Life Big Red Book

Photographs and screenshots of Marie Rambert This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Marie Rambert's big red book

Marie Rambert recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Quicksilver...

In 1962 I was made a Dame, much to my surprise. In that same year, I was the subject of the television programme This Is Your Life. I knew absolutely nothing about it in advance. My secretary told me only that I had been asked to do 'an interview' on television.

They wished to do the first few minutes in the print room at the Mercury, which is five minutes from my house. As the weather was appalling – melting snow, and dirty underfoot – a friend came to fetch me with a car. I did not know what I was to wear for the interview, so I took a case with me containing an evening dress, a day dress and some practice clothes. To be ready to change quickly, I did not trouble to do up the zip of the dress I was wearing. What was my surprise when the door of the print room was opened for me and I saw Eamonn Andrews, the producer, and a team of technicians under blazing lights, all ready to shoot.

I got very angry and would have been very rude to them for giving me this abominable surprise, as I was not fit to be seen, in my huge snow-boots, with a thick mohair scarf wrapped round my head. But then Eamonn Andrews put a big card in front of my eyes on which was printed This Is Your Life! Until that moment the secret had been kept from me most scrupulously, the whole point of the programme being that the 'victim' had no idea of what was going to happen. I began to unwind my hideous mohair scarf, then feverishly tried to zip up my dress – all of which was later seen on screen. It turned out to be one of the happiest events of my life.

The programme was shown that evening, and after the incident at the Mercury I had to promise not to divulge the secret. My secretary was allowed to ring a few of my friends and advise them to watch television that night, but under no circumstances reveal my name.

For the programme proper I was called on the stage and took a seat. Presently Karsavina appeared, said a few sweet things about me, kissed me and disappeared. Then came Ashton – same procedure. Then my adored Sally Gilmour, who had flown from Melbourne the previous night specially for the programme. Then the old lady, over ninety years of age, who had been my first accompanist in 1906. John Gilpin and Belinda Wright appeared.

Then there was a shot of the Metropolitan Theatre in New York, and I heard Antony Tudor's voice – also one of my artists – from Montreal. Then the voice of my younger daughter. She was living in Trinidad at the time – and I was thrilled to hear her. But Eamonn Andrews told me to look round – and there she was, large as life and smiling. She also had been flown in specially for that programme.

Then there was a shot of the jungle in South Africa and Peter Scott with a little bird in his hand, talking to me and reminding me how I had taught him to do cartwheels when he was my pupil during the first war. He added: 'I believe I could still do them, shall I try?' and promptly executed a couple of perfect ones. It was all incredibly exciting and at moments very moving.

After the performance they gave me a supper party with all the people who had been brought together for the occasion. As I was walking in on Eamonn Andrews' arm, I whispered to him: 'Is it not marvellous that you, who had never met me before, should have had it in your power to make me so happy?' He tapped me on the shoulder and said laughing: 'And earn my living at the same time.'

Brigitte Kelly recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in her book, Mim: A Personal Memoir of Marie Rambert...

8.55 am on a February morning in 1962. The double entrance doors to the Mercury were thrown wide open to the bitter cold outside. The teachers and pianists stood shivering with cold in the draughty foyer awaiting the arrival of Rambert for her 9 o'clock class. A television van was parked outside from which long cables like the entrails of a dinosaur wound over the pavement, up the steps, through the open doors and into the foyer.

A large avuncular man with a big face stood holding a large book and looking expectantly towards the open doors. Behind him crouched as unobtrusively as possible the camera crew. Erica fussed around in a terrible state.

'I'm so sorry. Madame is never late as a rule.'

The big man smiled indulgently and in a strong Irish brogue told her not to worry. Mim finally arrived looking awful and very cross. She was wearing a shabby dung-coloured coat, baggy black trousers, her head muffled up in a colourless shawl against the biting wind. We stood silently watching her mounting the steps, weaving her way through the yards of cable, bewildered to see so many people standing around so early in the morning. She glared at us, we stirred uncomfortably, was she going to stage one of her temperaments?

'What is all this all over the place?' she said, crossly indicating the cables - then looking up at the big man advancing towards her wreathed in smiles she added 'And who are you? You're very tall, what are you doing here?' Whereupon Eamonn Andrews presented her with the album and uttered the immortal words: 'Dame Marie Rambert, this is your life!'

'Oh no!' she shrieked in an agonised voice. A shade of annoyance crossed her features. Then suddenly aware that the cameras were running, true 'pro' that she was, she switched on the benign smile of the fairy godmother, received the album graciously in her two hands and performed her Grand Révérence to Andrews who was of course overwhelmed at the honour.

Series 7 subjects