Cynthia Gregory

Cynthia Kathleen Gregory, born July 8, 1946, in Los Angeles, California, is an American former prima ballerina whose career centered on American Ballet Theatre and extended to Broadway appearances in 1980 and 1981 with Twyla Tharp Dance and Makarova and Company.

Gregory began dancing at age five, encouraged by parents who hoped physical activity would address her recurring childhood illnesses. A performance by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev sparked her commitment to ballet specifically. By age six she was dancing en pointe, and at seven she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for the first time. Much of her foundational training came under Carmelita Maracci. At fourteen, a Ford Foundation scholarship brought her to the San Francisco Ballet, where she advanced from soloist to principal dancer while also performing with the San Francisco Opera.

After relocating to New York and living at the Rehearsal Club, Gregory joined American Ballet Theatre in 1965. Two years later, while ABT was touring San Francisco, she made her debut as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, a role she would later perform in New York the same year to wide recognition. That dual role became one most closely associated with her name. Over the course of her time at ABT, Gregory performed in more than eighty works, including more than a dozen created specifically for her. Her classical repertoire encompassed Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, Don Quixote, and La Sylphide, alongside contemporary works such as The Eternal Idol and At Midnight. She eventually danced with Nureyev himself in a production of Romeo and Juliet, a work he had originally created with Fonteyn. Nureyev referred to Gregory as "America's Prima ballerina assoluta."

Gregory's guest engagements took her to companies across multiple continents, among them the National Ballet of Canada, the Zurich Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, and the Stuttgart Ballet. She also appeared in Linda Ronstadt's music video for "When You Wish Upon a Star." In 1986, she was selected to open the newly renovated Paramount Theater in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, upon its reopening as the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts.

She resigned from ABT in 1991 to pursue a broader range of work, subsequently performing as a permanent guest artist with Cleveland San Jose Ballet, Dances...Patrelle, and Connecticut Ballet Theatre before concluding her public performances in 1992. Her choreographic output includes a solo set to Bach's "Air on the G String" and a two-minute rock video produced for Campbell's Soup. She has also staged classical ballets and led master classes for companies internationally. Gregory appeared in advertising campaigns for American Express, Raytheon, and Rolex, and is the author of Ballet is the Best Exercise. Her children's book, Cynthia Gregory Dances Swan Lake, was published in October 1990.

In September 2010, Nevada Ballet Theatre named Gregory an artistic advisor, and the Cynthia Gregory Center for Coaching was established at the company's Las Vegas studios. She has served on the board of directors of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation since 2008. From 1991 to 2015, she was Chairman of the Board of Career Transition For Dancers, a not-for-profit organization offering career counseling, scholarships, and related services to dancers navigating career changes due to age or injury; the organization merged with the Actors Fund of America in 2015.

Gregory's honors include the 1975 Dance Magazine Award, the Harkness Ballet's inaugural annual Dance Award in 1978, and two awards from Dance Educators of America, in 1981 and 1988, making her the only two-time recipient of that honor. New York Woman presented her with its first "Showstopper of the Year" award in 1988. The New York Public Library named her a "Lion of the Performing Arts" in 1989. She received the National Arts Club's lifetime-achievement Certificate of Merit in 1991, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University in 1993, and an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York–Purchase College in 1995.

The daughter of Konstantin Gregory, a dress manufacturer, and Marcelle Tremblay Gregory, she married fellow ABT dancer Terrence S. Orr in 1966; they divorced in 1975. Her second marriage, to rock music manager and promoter John Hemminger in 1976, ended with his death in 1984. She married attorney Hilary B. Miller in 1985; they divorced in 2008. Her children include a stepdaughter, Amanda Christine Miller, and a son, Lloyd Gregory Miller, who died in 2017. Gregory also pursues visual art in her free time, working in pen-and-ink and watercolor; her work has been exhibited at the gallery at Lincoln Center, at private galleries, and at annual art shows in Greenwich and Rowayton, Connecticut, as well as appearing on dance posters and CD covers.