Mary Ellen Moylan

Mary Ellen Moylan (August 24, 1925 – April 28, 2020) was an American ballet dancer and Broadway performer, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an Irish builder father and a schoolteacher mother. When Moylan was six, the family relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1931 as a consequence of the Great Depression. Her mother enrolled her in a local ballet school, and several years later, after reading about George Balanchine's newly founded School of American Ballet in a magazine, arranged for Moylan to attend. Beginning at age eleven, she participated in month-long summer sessions for two years before enrolling full-time in 1940 at age fourteen, living with her aunt in Manhattan. Following her father's death, she was awarded a scholarship, which she later described as a "lifesaver." Her instructors at the school included Balanchine, Pierre Vladimiroff, Muriel Stuart, Ludmilla Schollar, Felia Doubrovska, Anatole Oboukhoff, and Anatole Vilzak.

Moylan made her New York stage debut in 1942 at age seventeen, appearing in a one-off Balanchine ballet, Pas de Trois for Piano and Two Dancers, performed alongside Nicholas Magallanes at a Russian War Relief event. That same year she was cast as a principal dancer in the Strauss operetta Rosalinda, choreographed by Balanchine, with José Limón as her co-principal, and she performed in the production for a full year. Simultaneously, she was chosen to dance the role originated by Marie-Jeanne in Balanchine's Ballet Imperial. During the overlapping run of both productions, she would perform in Ballet Imperial and then take a taxi to a second theatre to appear in the second act of Rosalinda the same evening. New York Times critic John Martin reviewed her work in Ballet Imperial, writing, "She is definitely a talented dancer who is worth watching."

In 1943, Moylan joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she appeared in productions including Paquita, Giselle, Raymonda, Fokine's Les Sylphides, and Nijinska's Etudes, as well as Balanchine works such as Concerto Barocco, Serenade, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and Danses concertantes. The latter was created on the company, with Moylan, Nicholas Magallanes, and Maria Tallchief in the lead roles. Also in 1943, she performed alongside Ballet Russe in Wright and Forrest's operetta Song of Norway for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, with choreography by Balanchine, though illness caused her to miss some performances.

In 1946, Moylan left Ballet Russe to appear on Broadway in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's musical The Day Before Spring, which featured choreography by Antony Tudor. Later that year, she joined Ballet Society, the company founded by Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein that would become the forerunner of New York City Ballet. She created the role of Sanguinic in Balanchine's The Four Temperaments at Ballet Society's inaugural performance. Critic Edwin Denby, reviewing that performance, identified Moylan as "its bold young ballerina." She and Francisco Moncion subsequently created the lead roles in Balanchine's Divertimento, though she danced it only twice before departing Ballet Society in 1947.

Having studied singing and acting, Moylan returned to Broadway in 1947 in Straus' The Chocolate Soldier, again choreographed by Balanchine, with her and Moncion as the lead dancers. Around that time, Balanchine offered to create the lead role of Theme and Variations for her, and Ballet Theatre co-director Oliver Smith invited her to join that company. She declined both offers and returned instead to Ballet Russe, where she made her debut in Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, preferring, as she explained, to "dance all the big old roles."

In 1950, following changes within Ballet Russe, Moylan approached Lucia Chase and joined Ballet Theatre, now known as American Ballet Theatre. She traveled with the company on a European tour and made her company debut in London. Her repertory there included lead roles in The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote pas de deux, Balanchine's Apollo and Theme and Variations, Tudor's Jardin aux Lilas, and Petit's Les Demoiselles de la Nuit. In 1955, managing an ankle injury made touring difficult, and she joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, where she originated roles in Solov's Soirée and other opera ballets. In 1957, she appeared in a new staging of Lehár's The Merry Widow, choreographed by Balanchine, before retiring from performing later that year following her marriage.

Throughout her career, Moylan was closely associated with Balanchine's work, and she was featured in the 1989 documentary Dancing for Mr. B: Six Balanchine Ballerinas. In that film, fellow dancer Maria Tallchief described her as "the first great Balanchine dancer." After retiring from performance, Moylan taught ballet at Bennett College in Pleasant Valley, New York, where she also worked as a purchasing agent and campus shop manager. She later developed an interest in watercolor painting and held several exhibitions. Moylan moved to San Jose, California, in 1996 and to Washington State in 2007. She died on April 28, 2020, in Redmond, Washington, at the age of 94.