page_title: Sonia Humphrey
section_title: Early life and ballet career
hierarchical_section_title: Sonia Humphrey / Early life and ballet career
caption_attribution_description: English: Format: Photonegative Find more detailed information about this photograph: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=73990 Search for more great images in the State Library's collections: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/SimpleSearch.aspx From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales www.sl.nsw.gov.au
context_page_description: Sonia Denise Humphrey was an Australian television presenter, newsreader and journalist. Humphrey was a talented ballerina as a child and studied television production before working as an archaeologist for five years; during this period she also converted to Judaism. In the mid 1970s Humphrey worked as a television reporter and newsreader in Australia before presenting opera and ballet simulcasts for the Australian national broadcaster ABC. The management of ABC tried to remove Humphrey as a presenter of opera broadcasts due to her pregnancy, citing "aesthetic reasons". Humphrey pursued legal action against ABC, and the decision was reversed.
context_section_description: Sonia Humphrey was born in 1947 in Cambridge, England to Australian scientists George Humphrey and Beverley Franklin. She was a talented ballerina, and was the youngest recipient of a diploma with solo seal from the Royal Academy of Dance—the academy's highest award. She enrolled in the Royal Ballet School in London, but after a knee injury, she left the school and moved to Sydney. In Australia, she danced for the Australian Ballet before giving up dancing.
  Humphrey met ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn—whom she had seen perform in London—at Sydney Airport in May 1957. A photograph of their meeting was published on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. Five years later they met again, when Fonteyn visited the Lorraine Norton dance studio where Humphrey was a student.
caption: Sonia Humphrey (centre), aged 9, meeting Dame Margot Fonteyn in May 1957
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3448", "Image ImageLength": "2742", "Image BitsPerSample": "16", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Make": "Nikon", "Image Model": "Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "3000", "Image YResolution": "3000", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:06:10 12:06:11", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "454", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6222", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3356", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2616"}