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This is bars and tones for Freddie Pikelin at 3rd hour after taking the 3 under New York

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in his apartment and this is tone on channel 2, tempo channel 3, 3rd hour.

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I'll get back to the train in a minute but tell me first about growing up in Liverpool

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and Diaghilev coming. That's really the beginning of ballet.

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Well, you know, we were, it was really, we were trained and, are we on?

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No, wait a step, my smoke is in the way. Okay, is it gone?

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Yes. Okay, sorry.

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All right.

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The, no, the training that I had, I was very fortunate.

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I had at the very beginning two very good teachers that knew what they were doing

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and brought up in an atmosphere in the school that I was at that gave me a good insight

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into the business I was going into, be it the theatre proper or be it the ballet.

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I started really seriously, I started when I was six and it was really rather remarkable

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because I had a mother's name, teacher by the name of Mrs Kelly and I stood at the bar

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on the chairs, all kids do, and I went along and I think, you must, scholarship, he's,

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you know, this that and the other and at seven I was on the stage doing stuff flying around

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and there was one I was doing, the tray pack has trailed me all through my life it seems to me.

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I was doing that same thing, you know, a little version, but the, just to show a little bit

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how I was, the pianist had not made the cut in the music so I was sensing something was wrong

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and I'm only seven and I didn't stop, I kept right improvising, kept on going and the teacher said,

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you know Mrs Franklin, he's going to, when he's 18 he'll be a very good dancer.

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Well my mother nearly dropped when I was only seven, what's going to happen in the interim

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until I'm 18 when I'm going to be a good dancer. However, you know, I went through, we had to take

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exams in England, which I did, and then the Diageliff Ballet came, we went, I saw, we all saw,

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everybody saw, I saw, Alicia was 14, 16 or something ridiculous in those days,

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there was Alexander Danilova, the ballerina, oh I'd never seen anything like this, white face,

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black eyes, big tritues, hair, I took the picture out of the program and over the bed.

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Now isn't this strange, that's 1929, in 1938 I'm dancing with her. Now that interim is really

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something, this great big star and I'm on the stage when I saw my name go up to dance Guita

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Parisienne with Alexander Danilova and she looked at me and she said, how old you are? So I said,

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well I'm 22. She says, you know, when you are 30 we will talk, and that was the beginning of it,

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and that's this great partnership that took place and that was, but this was Diageliff. Now in 1931

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Anna Pavlova came and we saw her six weeks before she died. I auditioned for that ballet company,

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I was taken, I was going to be sent to London to the school that would prepare me for her ballet

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company and I remember coming home from school one day and my mother saying, Freddie,

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Anna Pavlova has just died and that finished that part of me off from getting into the ballet

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company, into a ballet company, because I'd have, had she lived, I'd have left England,

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had she traveled, you know, but there was no, nothing for me to go into and that's how that was

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England. Now talk about Pavlova dancing, you know that you've danced in her company in 1980.

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No, I'm, yes, yes, yes, you know, and well she had, when she came to Liverpool for a week

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and she was having a court case in London, she looked, she liked English girls, the Russian girls

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were all over the place, she didn't like Russian girls, they couldn't stay in a straight line in

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her ballet, so she loved the English because they watched out into it, and one of her girls had gotten

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into some trouble with a man and she was defending this young lady and she would go to London, which

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is four hours away, and spend the day in the courtroom and come back and do a performance

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and she had a bandage on her knee, she's 54 years old and she was incredible. I've never seen

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anything like it in my life and I remember everything that she did and on the closing night

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she did the dying swan and it was, the curtain came down, now this is Liverpool,

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full house, the curtain came down and nothing happened for a minute, now that's a long time

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and then it started and on it went up and down and there she was. I can't see anybody else do

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the dying swan, you know, I won't go near it now after having seen her do it. She was incredible and

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she looked so young. But what was it about her Freddie? How would you describe her as a dancer?

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I mean her technique? Well you see I saw her at the end, I mean and there was very little left but

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it didn't matter. She came on the stage and what she did and you never saw her prepare, you know,

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you never saw her prepare for a pirouette, it was dressed up and she did things and it's out of nowhere.

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She came on in the dying swan and you looked and there it was, whether she was on her toes,

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you didn't know what she was, she was like above the ground. The illusion, that's what she had,

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great illusion and it's what Alicia took hand also this illusion from her. Marvellous but it was

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a lasting effect on me that she's had, incredible and of course later on when I got to know and

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lived with Wendy and her mother in the company, Wendy Tor used to go sit in her dressing room

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in the, when Wendy was like four or five. So it was, all of that beginning for me

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was so important, I never realised the importance as to what it was going to, how it was going to

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make me feel later on when I was doing, I came to Ruth or I came to somebody else or did these other

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ballets, all that, I had all that background. I was very fortunate and I had four big dances in

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front of me practically all through my great life, my dancing life, there was Darlene,

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Markova, Danilva and Mersin and I'm a composite of all of them and then I came out.

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Talk about Mersin a little.

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Oh he was, well first of all I know he liked me, that was the nicest thing, he saw me only,

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only saw me dance once.

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The one time.

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And then he gave me the contract and then we got to Monte Carlo and there was a ballet,

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the names are on the board, I was in this, I was in that, I was in this, I learned that,

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I learned this, one day only my name was up there and his name, so he said Frederick as he called

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me in those days, we go into the small studio and he made his solo that he was going to dance,

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I didn't know that at the time, on me, he did this. Now when the ballet was finished we had all the

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lords and ladies from England that were donating money and it was a big show and they were all

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out front. I did practically every part in that ballet, I did a waiter, I did this, I did my own,

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I did his part, I did the walls, I did, it was all over and I was wiser than ever of course as

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always. He said to everybody, I want to introduce our new young premier, it's Frederick Franklin

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and so and so forth and then he turned to me and he said, well, he said Frederick you've danced

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all the big parts in this ballet, which would be the part that you'd really like to dance and I said,

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he said, I'm asking you, he said, well I would love to do the baron, he said, it's yours

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and it was always going to be yours. Now that was really something, so that was that was Lainey

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and then I remember going up one day, I knew his wife very well, we got along very well indeed

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and they were doing a ballet that I'd loved, all of it's the three-cornered hats with the

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tefeye music and I'd wanted to be in this, I said to Jenny, his wife, I said, look I don't care,

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put me in the back row, I've got to be in this ballet. She goes and tells him, so he says, Frederick

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I understand you want to be in three-cornered, I said, yes I do, he said, what do you think about

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learning my part? I said, what? I said, okay, you will be in, and I learned his part, I never got on,

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mind you, I never did it when I learned the part, you know, it's like the Judy Garland line, but he

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recovered because he was sick one night, but they threw me on for that and they threw me on for

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Beau Danube, the hosard, I did nearly all of his parts when he was with us in the ballet company,

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he again, I pick up quickly and I had the music and it was, he really actually was the first one

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that started me off, one day we were having a rehearsal of one of his ballets and he was very

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tired and I wasn't in that particular movement and he called me, he said, Freddie, take this rehearsal

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under all the ballerinas and all the premieres, and he said, just when I tell you to stop, stop,

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and I took it, and I said, this and that, you go, then it stopped me, and that was the first time

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I'd ever stood up in front of a group of people and rehearsed them, ever, it came later on, but he was

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the one that brought me out, showed me about it and made me understand how to do this and what to do

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about it, you know, so he had that kind of faith in me always and, you know, I'd have gone over the

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Monte Carlo thing like Moira Fira did in the red shoes if he'd asked me to have done it,

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I really, because I admired him, I remember one time also, he'd done a wonderful performance of

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Tricorne and I said to Shura Danilov, I said, you know, he danced so beautifully tonight, she said,

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why don't you go tell him? I said, I'm too frightened, she said, no, go, she made me and knocked on the

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door and I said, he said, Freddie, by that time it was Freddie, I said, I just want to say how

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wonderfully and beautifully you danced tonight, he said, you know, that is a compliment when one

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artist comes to another artist and I thought, oh, how nice and we've gone on all through like that

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until he died, still very, very close, loving him all the way.

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It strikes me that there were a lot of people who had a lot of faith in you during your career,

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when did you know that you were really good? Well, the, you know, the funny thing was,

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I think we had, for instance, I think in our day, and this is where I think Ruth comes into it all,

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we were given many kinds of roles. Now today, and I won't mention the ballet company,

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but you are in leotards and tights or you are in this kind of modern ballet or you are not called upon it.

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Now, the famous line, it's lovely getting there, it's harder to stay there, of course, it's the same thing,

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but I realized that I was being asked by this one and I was being asked by the other one to be in their ballets.

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Mr. Balanchine came in the early days and I was in, I was always in one of his ballets.

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I thought, well, I must be doing something that's right and they must be, you know, I must be all right with these things.

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And that's, I began to realize, you know, that there, that I was, and I was then dancing more and more with Danilova,

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I was dancing with other ballerinas, but there was something happening with me, there was something happening with her.

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She was much, much older than I, she is much older than I am, but the personalities fused, we met, we met on the stage,

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and that's where our collaboration, our partnership grew, and the audience liked that partnership.

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And I began to really feel, and it was like, oh, 28, 29, I thought, yes, well, I'm there now, I'm there, I am somebody, I've arrived.

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And it, I always wanted to be as good a dancer as I could possibly be, you know, and I made it, and I was very grateful for all of that.

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It never stopped working, of course, but that's when I knew, you know, when they say, well, I'd like Franklin,

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or this, that, and the other would come, and then there was the marvelous moment when Balanchine arrived, and the first thing he did was a serenade,

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and I was in it, and it was the first time in my life that I'd ever been on the stage where I wasn't anything.

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I was in tights and leotards, and that was it, and I waltzed. I wasn't anything, I wasn't a frog, prince, it was nothing.

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I just, it was the most peculiar experience. I didn't have to go and put just dance, and it was very strange for me,

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very strange for the Ballets of Monte Carlo to do such a ballet. We'd never had things like this.

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Now, he came back the next time, and he did Stravinsky's Je t'carte, card party. I had a wonderful part in that, I was the joker.

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And he left the, after it was staged, he went to the Russian management and said, Franklin will rehearse my ballet when I'm not here.

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Oh no, they said, you know, this and that. Then he's Balanchine, the ballet doesn't stay. Franklin will rehearse this ballet, this ballet, now while I'm not, and I did.

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And there were all the ballerinas in it, and Iglefsky, and Juskiewicz, they were all in it, and I rehearsed, told them what to do.

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And he never said anything to you?

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No, nothing, nothing. When I was, when we were in Song of Norway, 1931, when I was 31 years old, opening night,

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I'd been to him and I'd said, Mr. B, you know, there must be, there is something more than just dancing every night on the stage.

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I said, it's lovely to have the applause. I said, but there's more, and I want more. So we sniffed, you know, take your time.

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And all this went on. Well, the opening night, it's my birthday, we're in California, big success, Los Angeles.

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Standing there, Mr. Deng's given me a party, and he makes a speech.

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I must announce tonight that from now on, we have a new maître de ballet in the Ballet of St. Monte Carlo, his name is Fredric Franklin.

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I looked, and there's Mr. B, chuckling in the corner, and Anelope comes up to me and she says, you mean Frednicka?

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You are going to be my boss? And I said, yes, I'm going to be your boss.

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And he was the one that really pushed me into this business of staging, remembering, you know, the music in my mind.

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And that's how all that started. That was with him. Then I was 31, it came, so then I was two jobs.

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I was the premier dancer of the company and the maître de ballet, and held it down for years.

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So, you know, that was some, well, of course, when Ruth came, that's what I was doing.

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You make it sound so sort of accidental, as though...

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Well, you know, it really, it was, because I mean, who could have planned anything like this peculiar life that I've had?

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No one. It didn't go along normally. I wasn't born in an opera house atmosphere,

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where you go from automatically one thing to the next, and then at the end you get a pension.

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We didn't have that in England. We still, I think they are now, fortunately they do.

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But I was someone from out there, you know, a dancer with no, nothing solid under my feet, so to speak.

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But being, I suppose, of the English temperament, I was the way I was, although they did say they made a Russian out of me.

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But this is what, you know, this was all... I was grateful and thought about all of these things,

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and I really realised when they'd made me the maître de ballet, as they called it then.

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Now I had to learn the way of rehearsing with American dancers.

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It's not the same as working with English dancers or European dancers.

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European dancers do what they're told, more or less, and don't ask questions, not the Americans.

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I had to learn this. They question, and they're right.

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For example?

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Well, why do we have to do this and why can't we do that?

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And I said, just one moment, you know, I'm the director here now, and I'd like it this way.

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I said, please. And I had to go very carefully around them.

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English dancers or European dancers, if you tell them to go, you go. No questions.

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But there's an enquiry mind here, you see, and I had to learn about the enquiry mind,

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which is, we were all, you know, this is the way we were brought up,

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but the American dancers weren't that way.

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And I had to learn that, and I had to learn the way, and it was good for me.

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And this is my goodness me, it's been that way ever since.

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Now they surely weren't arguing with you about the steps.

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No, no, it was just a manner, and I had to learn...

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We'd be ordered rather brusquely by the, you know, by the Russians, especially the Russians.

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Rather shout at you, and you'd run and feel them trembling.

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But not with the... you didn't treat them like that.

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Now there were eventually five dancers, Americans, in the company,

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and I naturally gravitated towards them as my friends,

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much to the chagrin of the ballerinas, especially on the trains.

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Now the trains, that was something else.

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Talk about the trains.

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Now the trains.

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Travelling on your window frame.

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Now we had, there was a car, one car, for the soloists, the ballerinas and the premier danseurs.

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There was another coach for the corps de ballet.

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There was another coach for the musicians.

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And then there was the dining car.

186
00:18:35.620 --> 00:18:37.080
And this is how we travelled.

187
00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:42.340
Now, when we got onto the big jumps, two sleepers were brought on.

188
00:18:42.760 --> 00:18:44.020
Three sleepers were brought on.

189
00:18:44.060 --> 00:18:46.460
And plus the baggage, all the scenery on the back of the car.

190
00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:51.340
So we had then our own dining cars, us, and then the sleepers.

191
00:18:52.120 --> 00:18:53.260
And we would go.

192
00:18:54.120 --> 00:18:57.940
The big trip, one of the big trips was from Chicago to Denver.

193
00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:00.380
And there were stops in between.

194
00:19:01.320 --> 00:19:04.180
So the train would, all this great train would pull in the stations.

195
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.400
Then we'd all go to the theatre, we'd dance.

196
00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:13.860
And if the train didn't leave until three or four in the morning, we'd rehearse till the train left.

197
00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:16.780
Right after the performance.

198
00:19:17.020 --> 00:19:19.480
Get back on the train and go to the next stop.

199
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:21.400
That's how it was.