She worked with Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic, and then founded a small ballet company based at Sadler's Wells. Out of that eventually evolved giants on the international cultural stage, the Royal Ballet, at Covent Garden Opera House, in London, Britain's Birmingham Royal Ballet, and the Royal Ballet School, in west London. She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1951, Companion of Honor in 1981, and in 1992 she was appointed to the Order of Merit, to which only 24 people may belong at one time. She had been frail for many years, and became so much weaker three years ago that it was feared she would not reach her centenary. She outlived a parade of brilliant figures whom she had discovered and nurtured.
Life is a cabaret . . .
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