The Skinny -- Tamara Toumanova

I first want to start with how I discovered this lovely ballerina, Tamara Toumanova.  I found this photo:

 

 

In the way we Blackbird girls do, I thought, geez, that dress is fab.  And she's pretty lovely herself!  Little did I know that this photo would lead me to discover that Tamara Toumanova was a dancer in Invitation to the Dance, a film written and directed by Gene Kelly.  It has three distinct stories, all told through dance, with no dialogue.  He starred in all three parts.  When we watched the movie, we liked all three stories -- but our most favorite part of the entire movie was the super sexy part with a woman in red.  We love us some Gene Kelly.  And that woman in red?  Ballerina Tamara Toumanova.  She and Gene have some chemistry -- major chemistry.  You can watch her in action with Gene below -- start at around 8:30 in the video.

 



 

I could get into a long bio for her, but let me just hit the high points so we can get to the good stuff -- pictures!  Toumanova was born in March 1919.  She was the child of two Russian exiles, who eventually moved to Paris.  She was a child ballet prodigy, making her debut in the children's ballet at the Paris Opera when she was 10 years old. George Balanchine discovered her in 1931 at age 12, and cast her in Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, along with two other young ballerinas -- Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska.  The trio was a great success, and very soon became known as the "Baby Ballerinas."

Toumanova was also known as "the Black Pearl of the Russian Ballet."  She was lovely -- with dark hair and eyes, and soft almond skin. She was striking -- and glamorous.  Traits that made her perfect for film as well as the stage.  She had an amazing ballet career, but she also starred in six Hollywood movies.  Her debut was in Days of Glory, a 1944 drama starring Gregory Peck, which was, amazingly, his film debut as well!  In 1953, she made the movie, Tonight We Sing, Deep in My Heart was made in 1954, and Invitation to the Dance was made in 1956. 

 

She was in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain as the lead ballerina.  We've seen that movie -- we're big Hitchcock fans -- but unfortunately...she's not the memory that sticks out for us from that film.  We're kind of distracted by Paul Newman in his 1966 prime.  Mmmm...Paul Newman...  Anyhoo -- her last film was Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, in 1970.

 

 

She died in May 1996, at age 77, from undisclosed causes.  She was buried beside her mother in Hollywood.

 

 

Toumanova and Danny Kaye, LIFE magazine, 1945

Photo by George Platt Lynes, 1941

 

Here's a video montage of stunning photos of her:

  

 

The Skinny -- Paul Himmel

Grand Central Terminal, NYC, 1947

Paul Himmel, an American fashion and documentary photographer, was born in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut.  His parents were Ukranian immigrants.  They moved to Coney Island in 1922, and opened the country's first vegetarian restaurant.   

As a teenager, Himmel taught himself about photography.  But he went to school for science, and began teaching in 1932.  It wasn't his calling, though, and he then studied graphic journalism at the New School with Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch in the late 1940s (Brodovitch worked there from 1938-58).  

Himmel's portrait of Bassman

It was his relationship with Lillian Bassman, the love of his life, that most affected Himmel, though.  He met her in 1923, married her in 1935, and exhibited his first work in 1939 -- photos taken while on a trip to Mexico with her.  Bassman was also a fashion photographer, and is very well known in her own right.  They were married over 73 years.

He started to work as a professional photographer in 1945, and by 1947 he was working steadily as a fashion photographer for Bazaar and Vogue.  He was one of the very few who worked for both magazines.  Unfortunately, all his negatives from this time have been destroyed.

Bassman and Himmel, 2003

By the 1950s, bored with the commercialism of his fashion work, Himmel started his own art projects.  He looked to the human form for inspiration, focusing on people who used their bodies in their own work, like ballet dancers, circus performers, and boxers.  He experimented with grain structure in his negatives and prints, using a series of silhouetted and elongated forms abbreviated almost to the point of abstraction.  His photos are high-contrast, emphasizing the design and patterns contained in the image.

ballet in action, 1954

He published a book, ballet in action, in 1954.  It had an extensive foreword, written by George Balanchine, the lead choreographer of the New York City Ballet.  In 1955, some of his images were included in a show curated by Edward Steichen, called "The Family of Man" for MOMA.

ballet in action, 1954

Himmel took his last photograph in 1967, and by 1969, he became disenchanted with photography and retrained as a psychotherapist. He worked in psychotherapy for more than 25 years.  An exhibition at the New York Galleries, by Howard Greenberg and James Danzinger, in 1996 reintroduced his work; it was an instant success, and a new book of his work was published.

Abstract Nudes, 1954

Paul Himmel died February 8, 2009.

*Info from artnet.com, theworldofphotographers.com and Wikipedia