Agnes de Mille

American dancer and choreographer

• Born: September 18, 1905
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: October 7, 1993
• Place of death: New York, New York

De Mille, a pioneer in modern dance, was the first to integrate dance into theatrical productions and to make it accessible to the general public.

Early Life

Agnes de Mille (deh-MIHL) was born in New York City into a family that was already deeply involved in the entertainment industry. Her father, William C. deMille, a playwright like his father before him, produced his first success at the age of twenty-five in collaboration with David Belasco. Her uncle was Cecil B. DeMille, the pioneering film producer. Anna George deMille, Agnes’s mother, was the daughter of the political economist Henry George; following in her father’s footsteps, she became an ardent Single-Taxer and a born crusader for various causes. The qualities of talent for the theater and crusading zeal became fused in Agnes de Mille and were controlling factors in her life.

In 1914, after one of his Broadway productions failed, William deMille accepted his brother Cecil’s invitation to join him in Hollywood and try his hand in the fledgling motion picture business. Anna deMille dutifully packed up her daughters, Agnes and her sister Margaret, and followed her husband into what she considered the “primitive” land of the West. Although Agnes was disappointed that Hollywood did not contain the expected cowboys and Indians, it was this relocation that would be the shaping factor in her life.

De Mille was enrolled in the Hollywood School for Girls, where her best friends were the only two male pupils, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Joel McCrea. Although she was a diligent student, de Mille most enjoyed her class in pantomime. She was convinced that since her family was in “the business,” she would become an actor. To cater to this ambition, her father gave her a small role in his film The Ragamuffin in 1916. It was the following year, however, when de Mille’s professional goals took a marked turn as, awestruck, she watched a performance by the great ballerina Anna Pavlova.

During those years, dance was of no universal consequence; in fact, it suffered from universal indifference, perpetuated by a social taboo in which de Mille’s father firmly believed. Ladies, he believed, simply did not dance. Coupled with her father’s negation was the strict code of conduct and dress that her mother believed was appropriate for women of their social standing. De Mille continued to beg for ballet lessons but repeatedly was told no.

Fortunately for de Mille and for the world of the theater, providence intervened. Five years later, her sister Margaret was diagnosed with fallen arches and the family physician recommended dance lessons as a means of strengthening her feet. Since Margaret was required to study dance, de Mille was allowed to do so as well, and both were enrolled in the Kosloff School. After her initial audition, de Mille was told that, at thirteen years of age, she was probably too old to train but that she would be accepted if she agreed to work harder than most toward building resiliency.

De Mille knew that she had found her life’s work, and she continued to train despite her father’s continued objections. He knew better than to forbid his strong-willed daughter to enter the field, but he refused to support her work and did not attend a single recital or performance. At her parents’ insistence, de Mille entered the University of California, one mile from her home, and was graduated cum laude with a degree in English. Her professors assured her that she had a talent for writing, but de Mille had other plans for her life.

Life’s Work

The day after de Mille graduated from college, her parents announced that they were divorcing. She moved with her mother back to New York, where, with an allowance from her father and generous support from her mother, she continued to study ballet. She premiered as a dancer with Jacques Cartier in New York in 1928. Modest success, however, was not enough. It was her desire to expand traditional ballet into full-scale theater, but her financial support was insufficient to mount and produce such an event.

In an effort to gain further recognition, de Mille traveled to London, where she continued to study and helped to organize the London Ballet Company. When she returned to New York, the Depression was in full swing and entertainment funding had taken a backseat to basic survival. She made herself available for any type of work that involved theater, stating that she stopped short only of “jiggling on the sidewalk with a tambourine.” In 1935, desperate for money, she tried giving lessons but found that she had no rapport with small children; many of her students complained of physical illness following a session with de Mille.

Finally, realizing that the situation in the United States was not going to change quickly, de Mille returned to London to work with Anthony Tudor and Hugh Laing, her longtime companions and partners. During that period, she gained some monetary success and a growing reputation as a dancer and choreographer. Her company toured Paris, Brussels, and Copenhagen, and she choreographed several films, including Romeo and Juliet (1936) and I, Claudius (1937). After she had spent six years in London, however, her work permit was not renewed. Europe was readying itself for war, and foreigners were being sent home.

De Mille returned to New York. Using the funds she had accumulated in Europe, she studied with Martha Graham and in the process became her friend. Shortly after her return, however, she received a call that would change the direction of her life. The call was from a young man, Richard Pleasant, whom she had met several years earlier while he was running errands for a dance studio. Pleasant intended to mount a new international ballet company, Ballet Theater, and he wanted her to join him with the understanding that she would not dance she would only choreograph.

De Mille worked with Ballet Theater for several years until the company ran into financial difficulty. Perhaps her most outstanding contribution during that time was Black Ritual (Obeah), an exotic work with an African American cast. It marked the first use of African American ballerinas, who, until then, had been offered no market for their skill.

After leaving Ballet Theater, de Mille joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and it was there that she established the criteria for the work that would occupy the balance of her life. In 1942, she designed and produced Rodeo, the first ballet ever created using traditional American themes, which featured music by Aaron Copland. The irony of working with primarily Russian dancers did not occur to her as she forced them to emulate the actions of bucking broncos and bareback riders, using nothing but their own torsos and pantomime. The production debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House on October 16, 1942, and received nineteen curtain calls.

From that point, the name Agnes de Mille became firmly implanted in the annals of American choreography. After fifteen years of concentrated endeavor, she was, at last, an “overnight success.”

In the years that followed, de Mille became as much at home on Broadway as she was at the Metropolitan, and she worked on such productions as Carousel, Brigadoon, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Through her, dance was integrated into the play to move the action forward, instead of functioning as an intrusive appendage. She won Tony Awards for her work in Brigadoon in 1947 and for Kwamina in 1962. Although her favorite was Paint Your Wagon, she is best known for her work in Oklahoma!, which debuted in March, 1943. During this period, she continued to create formal ballets, including Three Virgins and a Devil, The Informer, and Fall River Legend, a psychological study of Lizzie Borden. Many of these works were created for and premiered by the American Ballet Theatre.

De Mille became an articulate advocate of federal support for the arts and served on the first board of the National Endowment for the Arts. Among her most prestigious honors were being named to the Theater Hall of Fame in 1973, receiving the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and being awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, the highest national recognition in the performing arts, in 1980.

In addition to having a career as a dancer, a choreographer, and an activist, de Mille also wrote fourteen books about dance, art, and her life. She placed the last one in her agent’s hands a few days before her death. Her literary style is lively, personable, engaging, and honest. Among her works are three volumes of autobiography–Dance to the Piper (1952), And Promenade Home (1958), and Speak to Me, Dance with Me (1973) as well as the definitive volume To a Young Dancer (1962).

In 1975, de Mille was disabled by a cerebral hemorrhage, but through rehabilitative therapy, willpower, and her unquenchable drive to survive, she recovered. She continued to work from a wheelchair or propped up in her bed. Having learned to write with her left hand, she penned another book, Reprieve (1981), about her illness. A mere fourteen months after her stroke, she received a standing ovation at the New York State Theatre during the premiere of her bicentennial celebration piece Texas Fourth.

On October 7, 1993, a second stroke ended the stellar career of de Mille, then eighty-eight, only a few days after she was honored by the Tony Awards on the fiftieth anniversary of Oklahoma!

Significance

De Mille broke new ground in dance in multiple ways. She was the first choreographer to use American folk themes extensively in her work, making dance more accessible to the general public. Consequently, she was also the first to produce a ballet that was truly American in spirit and style. She used humor in her pieces and was told she had a natural gift for comedy. She created human characters that were warm, witty, and often irreverent, and she insisted that her dancers portray their characters with honesty and vitality. Through her, the dance finally reached and conquered Broadway. She discarded the lyrical and the choreographed for what was theatrical or dramatic, thereby integrating dance into the script. Described as blunt, critical, and tenacious, de Mille drew on her own indefatigable spirit, rather than on the success of her family name, to revolutionize musical theater by incorporating into it elements of folk dancing and classical ballet.

Bibliography

Amberg, George. Ballet in America. New York: Duell, Sloan, Pearce, 1949. An in-depth historical view of ballet from the early nineteenth century through musical comedy. It includes extensive information on the Ballet Russe and Ballet Theater and de Mille’s involvement in both. Also included are a chronology and selected ballet repertories.

Anderson, Jack. Dance. New York: Newsweek Books, 1974. A brief overview of ballet history from its origins through the modern period. Includes biographical information on dancers, including de Mille, and a selected bibliography.

Balanchine, George. Balanchine’s New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets. Edited by Francis Mason. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968. Written by one of the great masters of dance, this work includes plot summaries, brief historical information, and a chronology of significant events in ballet history. There is an annotated list of recordings as well as a selected bibliography.

De Mille, Agnes. Dance to the Piper. Boston: Little, Brown, 1952. The first volume of de Mille’s autobiography, this work covers the period from her departure from New York to live in Hollywood through the “lean” years to the success of Rodeo and the launching of her career.

Flinn, Denny Martin. Musical! A Grand Tour, the Rise, Glory, and Fall of an American Institution. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997. Includes a chapter about de Mille’s choreography from Oklahoma!

Kraus, Richard. History of the Dance in Art and Education. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. A historical overview of dance, including information on its meaning and purpose, beginning with primitive cultures and continuing through religious ceremonies to modern dance. Information is included on integrating dance into an educational curriculum.

Lloyd, Margaret. The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance. New York: Dance Horizons, 1949. This overview of modern dance includes thumbnail sketches of many of the originators and innovators in the movement. It incorporates information on the changes in perception of dance from formal classical ballet to the humanizing of dance as an integral part of the theater.

Long, Robert Emmet. Broadway, the Golden Years: Jerome Robbins and the Great Choreographer-Directors, 1940 to the Present. New York: Continuum, 2001. This study of Broadway theater post-1940 includes a chapter about de Mille.