Robert Helpmann

Sir Robert Murray Helpmann, born Robert Helpman on 9 April 1909 in Mount Gambier, South Australia, was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, choreographer, and director whose career spanned more than six decades across stage, screen, and opera. He died in Sydney on 28 September 1986 and was accorded a state funeral at St Andrew's Cathedral, with Prime Minister Bob Hawke delivering a tribute in the Parliament of Australia and a motion of condolence passed in his honor — a distinction rarely extended to figures outside politics. The Helpmann Awards for Australian performing arts were established in 2001 to commemorate his legacy.

The eldest of three children born to James Murray Helpman, a stock and station agent and auctioneer, and his wife Mary, née Gardiner, Helpmann grew up in a household where his mother's passion for the theatre shaped all three children. His younger brother Max and sister Sheila both pursued careers on stage, television, and screen. After attending Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, Helpmann was taken on as a student apprentice by Anna Pavlova during her 1926 Australian tour, receiving training from her leading male dancer, Alexis Dolinoff. He subsequently joined the theatrical producers J. C. Williamson Ltd as principal dancer for musicals, revues, and pantomimes, beginning with Franz Lehár's Frasquita in 1927 and going on to appear in productions including Katinka, The Merry Widow, The New Moon, Queen High, This Year of Grace, and Tip-Toes alongside performers such as Gladys Moncrieff, Marie Burke, and Maisie Gay. He also cited Melbourne dancer and broadcaster Stephanie Deste as an influence on his development as both a dancer and actor.

The English actress Margaret Rawlings, impressed by Helpmann during an Australian tour, encouraged him to pursue a career in Britain and provided an introduction to Ninette de Valois, director of the Vic-Wells Ballet. Helpmann left Australia in 1932 and did not return until 1955. De Valois accepted him into the company, later writing that "everything about him proclaims the artist born," while also noting his technical weaknesses alongside his intelligence, wit, and theatrical instinct. In the mid-1930s, likely at Rawlings's suggestion, he added a second "n" to his surname. At the Vic-Wells Ballet he partnered Alicia Markova in productions including Swan Lake and the 1934 de Valois ballet The Haunted Ballroom, and later formed what his biographer Kathrine Sorley Walker described as a "perfectly matched partnership" with the young Margot Fonteyn, exemplified by their performances in The Sleeping Beauty. Frederick Ashton choreographed Apparitions for Helpmann and Fonteyn in 1936. Helpmann also became known for his comedy roles, including parts in Coppélia, Ashton's A Wedding Bouquet, and de Valois's The Prospect Before Us, as well as the character role of the Red King in de Valois's Checkmate, which he first performed at age 28 and last performed in 1986 at age 77.

Alongside his ballet work, Helpmann pursued an acting career from early in his professional life. His Oberon in Tyrone Guthrie's Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream — which also featured Vivien Leigh as Titania and Ralph Richardson as Bottom — drew exceptional critical praise. The Times declared that his verse "sings with his thought" and that his Oberon "flashes with power," while the leading London critic James Agate called it the best Oberon he had ever seen. It was also at the Old Vic that Helpmann met director Michael Benthall, with whom he formed a lifelong personal and professional partnership. During the Second World War, when Frederick Ashton was called up for active service in 1941, Helpmann assumed the additional role of choreographer for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, creating Comus (1942), The Birds (1942), Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and a version of Hamlet set to Tchaikovsky's music. He also returned to acting in the title role of Hamlet with the Old Vic company in 1944.

In the 1940s Helpmann appeared increasingly in plays at the Old Vic and in the West End, taking on roles in works by Shakespeare, Shaw, Coward, Sartre, and others. His Broadway career ran from 1951 to 1954, during which he starred in A Midsummer Night's Dream and appeared in The Millionairess, Antony and Cleopatra, and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Although primarily a stage artist, Helpmann appeared in fifteen films between 1942 and 1984, among them One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942), The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann, a film version of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale in which he played the Devil, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in which he portrayed the Child Catcher. His final film appearance came in Second Time Lucky in 1984.

In 1965 Helpmann became co-director of the Australian Ballet, for which he created several new works. He assumed sole directorship in 1975 but was dismissed a year later following disagreements with the company's board. He continued to direct for Australian Opera and to act in stage productions into the 1980s. His range as a director extended from Shakespeare to opera, musicals, and pantomime.