Nora Kaye

Nora Kaye, born Nora Koreff on January 17, 1920, in New York City, was an American prima ballerina, Broadway performer, and film producer. The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Louise and Gregory Joseph Koreff, she grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Her father had been an actor with the Moscow Art Theatre under Konstantin Stanislavski. Kaye later shortened her surname professionally to Kaye, and is also known by the married name Kaye-Ross. She earned the nickname the Duse of Dance, a reference to the celebrated actress Eleonora Duse, in recognition of her capacity for dramatic interpretation in ballet roles.

Kaye began dance training at the age of five under Michel Fokine, and three years later enrolled in a ballet class at the Metropolitan Opera school, where she studied under Margaret Craske. At fifteen she graduated into the Metropolitan Opera's corps de ballet. She also pursued training at the School of American Ballet and worked with teachers including Anatole Vilzak and Ludmilla Schollar. In 1939 she joined the American Ballet, directed by Lucia Chase, and subsequently became a member of the Radio City Music Hall corps de ballet.

Her Broadway career spanned from 1935 to 1952 and encompassed a range of productions. Her credits included the play Great Lady, the musicals Stars In Your Eyes and Fancy Free, and the productions Company and Giselle, the latter staged in 1941. She also appeared in Two's Company in 1952, a revue that starred Bette Davis. Among her other notable stage work was Antony Tudor's Pillar of Fire in 1942. Following her performing career, Kaye worked as an assistant on the Broadway musicals I Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1962, Tovarich in 1963, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 1965.

Kaye married Michael Murray Van Beuren in 1943, a marriage that ended in divorce. She married violinist Isaac Stern in 1948, also ending in divorce, and was briefly engaged to Jerome Robbins in 1951. In August 1959 she married film director, producer, choreographer, and actor Herbert Ross in Majorca. Together they founded Ballet of Two Worlds, which toured Europe in 1960 performing Ross choreography including Persephone and The Dybbuk. After retiring from ballet in 1961, Kaye collaborated extensively with Ross on his film projects, contributing to Goodbye, Mr. Chips in 1969, The Last of Sheila in 1973, Funny Lady and The Sunshine Boys in 1975, and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution in 1976. Their final collaboration was the film Dancers. Playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents stated in his 2000 autobiography Original Story By that he and Kaye had a recurring romantic relationship following his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1946.

Kaye's film producing credits included The Turning Point in 1977, Nijinsky in 1980, Pennies from Heaven in 1981, and The Secret of My Succe$s in 1987. She died of cancer in Los Angeles on February 28, 1987, at the age of 67. She is buried alongside Herbert Ross at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, where their gravestone bears the inscription "They Loved Each Other."