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period when you danced with her or earlier somebody really good somebody enthusiastic and

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vibrant like you and smart and articulate.

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Can't even think of anybody articulate, can't think of anybody at all.

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So talk about a little bit.

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What is it?

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This is what?

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Oh, I have a funny story to tell you.

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Can I tell a story?

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Sure.

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I think I know the best.

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The cameraman, particularly good.

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And the situation made it especially, I mean it didn't matter because it made it especially funny because

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he didn't know that Ruth had an affair with the Gucci, but Ruth assumed she did.

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Well that's what gave me the start when you said do you think she made a mistake because

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he's a great artist and then he went and I had never thought that she would, it had never occurred

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to me that she would make a choice like that.

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I didn't know that story.

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I never heard that, that she had almost, I thought she just had an affair and that was that.

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But no, it was more serious.

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Oh yes.

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I didn't know that.

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Or at least if I did, forgotten it.

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No, I'm sure I didn't know it.

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It never occurred to me she hadn't.

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I thought well what would it have been like?

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You can't help that.

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Everybody has that somewhere in their life.

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Should have done that maybe, maybe not.

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Sure.

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We are rolling.

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We were talking about Hear Ye Hear Ye.

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I saw Hear Ye Hear Ye was one of the first ballets that I saw and I was very interested in it

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because my dancing teacher Bentley Stone was in it.

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Bentley had a sort of a gift for getting slaughtered in ballets and Hear Ye Hear Ye got killed three times.

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It was an interesting ballet.

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Very smart as I remember.

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Art Deco, it seemed to hit me.

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All black and silver.

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I remember black and white, black and silver and nothing much else in it.

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It was three versions of a murder like there's a Japanese story like that.

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Right, Rashomon.

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Ruth was Bentley, he was always the one who got killed and she killed him once.

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Ginny Nugent who was a close friend of mine was in the court of ballet then.

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We became close friends after that after I got in the company.

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Ginny killed him once, I forgot who killed him the other time.

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But it was very chic and a nightclub set.

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Very, very smart.

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Not a sympathetic ballet and certainly not one that maybe should be revived or anything of the sort.

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But it was smart.

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It was stylish.

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Do you know that's the first time that anybody ever commissioned Aaron Copland to write music?

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Copland did it.

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And the score, I was mentioning it to some musician here in town who has a chamber orchestra.

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And I said, well there's a, he was doing Copland and I said there's another Copland score I heard once

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and I've never heard it since and it's Hear You, Hear You and Ruth Page commissioned it.

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And he said where's the music, who's got it?

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And I said Ruth I expect.

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Oh she does.

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Yes, Copland and Iber on that program both.

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That was his first commission?

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First time anybody had ever commissioned him to do music for a ballet, it was Ruth.

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I wonder how she found him.

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I'd love to hear it again.

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But she has a gift for those people.

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She does.

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Did you know that Gucci did a ballet for the Bells?

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No.

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Oh of course I did.

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He made a set.

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Yes, sure.

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I was thinking, didn't get the music to choreography.

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Yes he did the Bells and it's stunning too.

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You saw the Bells?

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No, I've seen the pictures of it.

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But you haven't seen it?

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Never saw it danced.

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I guess she was doing something called American Song Bag.

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Those are those Carl Sandberg things that you never saw in 1940.

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Is there another ballet?

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The first ballet I ever saw Ruth rehearse was American in Paris.

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She did that before I...

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American in Paris?

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No.

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A Gershwin ballet.

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The blues number in it.

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Blues dancers from Harlem.

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She had black dancers in it.

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She did it the year I joined the company because they saw it in rehearsal.

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She had acrobats in it.

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It was a very good ballet.

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It was a very short ballet.

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Very small company.

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Not a big all out court of ballet.

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I think it was called American in Paris.

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Reps?

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It was...

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Do you remember anything about a ballet called Delirious Delusion?

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Oh yes.

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That wasn't a ballet.

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That was Ruth.

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She did Salvador Dali.

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She had an eye on her tummy and a picture frame around here.

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It was madness.

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It was a very good ballet.

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How many battles?

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A bare feet.

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It was very hard to describe.

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She and Tommy had a Dali painting in their apartment.

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The melted watches.

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So she, somewhere along the line, decided to do a Dali solo of her own.

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So she had a picture frame, a big Dali eye here.

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What else did she have?

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It was perfectly awful.

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It was sort of awful as a matter of fact.

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It was terribly smart and very amusing.

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And that's all I have to say for that number.

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The costume was incredible of course.

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But she didn't dance.

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She maimed and she mugged and she carried on.

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And it was great theater.

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She risked it.

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It was a good show.

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But as far as dance was, it was not.

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But it was fun.

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It was fun.

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She likes to take risks.

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Well of course.

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And she also likes to shock people.

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I think startle them and do something new.

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She has been naturally one jump ahead.

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But she likes to maintain it.

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I'm sure.

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And so occasionally, sure, out on a risk, out on a limb.

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But invariably good theater.

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She doesn't miss on that angle.

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Of the performances that you can remember of seeing Bruce dance as a soloist.

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Or solo ballets.

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You know what I mean.

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Not really a ballet but just a dance.

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Her own solo.

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What else can you remember?

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I remember the nursemaid, a little group of three satiric dances.

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I don't remember the music to them.

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But when she was a nursemaid and was taking care of a baby.

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Which of course you can get a toss eventually at the end of it.

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She had great humor in a lot of those things.

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The Shakespearean heroines on the other hand were occasionally humorous.

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Juliette was perfectly beautiful.

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She was lovely in that.

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That was never developed.

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She did Romeo and Juliette as a ballet later.

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Or her company later on.

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But she was stunning in it.

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She had a costume that was very beautifully draped and moved beautifully with her.

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It was very effective.

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Who made her costumes?

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Different people.

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Ramosov for a long time.

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Ramosov did her costumes, did her makeup.

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Did their home in Hubbard Woods.

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He was very influential with her.

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I've seen pictures of her in the Infanta that Bohm did of course.

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I have no idea who did those costumes.

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Later on, Paul Dupont did a lot.

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He also danced with her at one point.

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And then John, what was his name?

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He married Catherine Denham.

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It wasn't Crane.

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Big Chicago family of some sort.

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Did a lot of her costumes for the road.

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She had Lenore Feeney later.

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I don't know if she did costumes.

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I know she did her sets.

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And then of course Andre Delpho did those magnificent costumes.

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And Alice for some.

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She's had a great many good artists working for her and with her.

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I think they'd be delighted to do so.

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They have a challenge.

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What do you mean they have a challenge?

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Ruth, as I always think about her, has great taste and great judgment and a great sense of theatre.

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And you better be right.

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If it weren't, it wouldn't be there.

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I'm sure she has given many of them fits.

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Because she would have the concept.

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She's got a great sense of style.

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Her clothes are always wonderful.

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Great sense of personal style and a great sense of style for other people.

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And certainly for a ballet.

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And I think she probably was quite demanding on what had happened.

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Besides, they not only have to look well, they've got to move well.

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That's another problem with ballet costumes.

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It must be quite a chore.

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Once you pass the original tutu, which moves fine.

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That's true.

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What about, what would you, if you had to guess, would you say was Ruth's major motivation performing?

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Or the thing she enjoys most?

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Or choreographing?

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I think she liked the choreography.

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I always think she liked it.

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When she talks about it, she'll say, I made a dance and I did a solo because I had nobody else to work with.

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But the dance and the look of it has always seemed very important to her.

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Then when she had a few people, then she could do a few things.

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And she then did more as the more she acquired.

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And she got a lot of people and did Nutcracker.

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But her whole first work was on herself.

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She had to do her own solos in Indianapolis when she was very young.

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And she did a lot of them.

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She said they couldn't keep me from performing in the living room.

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She was always dashing in and showing somebody her dances.

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Like children ran in with their drawings.

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I'm sure she ran in with her dances.

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Did she like to perform, Betsy?

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Oh, I think so.

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She was a successful performer and she always looked so marvelous.

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You couldn't help but enjoy it.

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You couldn't help it.

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She got a lot of big ovations.

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I think so, yes.

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She was extremely well known.

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Dancing at the time she was dancing didn't have that many ballerinas.

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There just weren't that many.

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And certainly didn't have that many American ballerinas.

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And when the Ballet Company came to town with one ballerina in it, of course.

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And she was a very interesting performer.

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Critics like her?

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Never a bore.

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Never a bore.

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Sometimes yes and sometimes no.

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I don't think we see Frankie and Johnny with open arms.

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I'm trying to remember, I can't.

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No, all the time she was always a little ahead.

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And when critics get baffled and don't know what to say, then they get angry.

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Besides, dance critics, they don't know anything about it.

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Most of them.

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Why do you say that?

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Well, I'm thinking of that time.

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Claudia didn't know anything about dancing.

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Undoubtedly she wasn't trained that way.

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But she was perceptive enough and had taste enough to know what was going on in front of her.

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She is a contestant critic as far as I'm concerned.

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Because she's got the imagination to match the artist.

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But a lot of them that are music critics and music teachers or music professors or whatever they are

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and try to critique the ballet at the same time, they don't know what they're talking about.

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You read one and criticism, you're completely appalled and wonder if you were sitting at the same performance.

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They don't know what they're talking about, quite frankly.

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Then there are some great ones.

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The woman on the New York Times is super, but that's another matter.

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Arlene Croce, I think, is an interesting critic, although she doesn't go on about it to a degree.

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She writes as long as the ballet is 40-minute ballet.

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She would write a 40-minute article.

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She is too one-sided.

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She's very New York City.

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She says good things, but she should get around the country and see what other people are doing.

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Everybody should at this point.

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Now you went and danced in New York after you left Ruth's Company.

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Yes, I'm trying to remember exactly how that happened to me.

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I can't.

258
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I picked up and went east with the opera company, then did a Puerto Rican tour with the Metropolitan, which was fun.

259
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I was so sure I was going to get into that company because I thought I was a very good dancer

260
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compared to the others.

261
00:13:49.060 --> 00:13:52.260
This was a tour, a pre-season tour.

262
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Then I didn't get into the company to my utter shock and severe disappointment

263
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because I wanted to be an opera choreographer.

264
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I thought that was a very good thing to be.

265
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I loved the life of the opera.

266
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I was crazy about the backstage life.

267
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I always liked to enjoy this sort of thing.

268
00:14:12.060 --> 00:14:14.680
I thought that that was a very good thing to be.

269
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Besides, I liked it.

270
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I thought it was an interesting thing.

271
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Ruth, as a matter of fact, was probably role modeling for me on this one.

272
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But she didn't care for the opera.

273
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She would rather have been doing her own big things, whereas I thought the opera ballet was simply great.

274
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At any rate, that ruined my great ambition at this point.

275
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But then I turned around with Oklahoma, which of course was a great experience

276
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because it was an all-out howling success.

277
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It's great fun to be in a success.

278
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It's really great fun.

279
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It's an experience for none.

280
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So now you've known Ruth for a long time.

281
00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:52.900
And you've stayed interested in ballet all your life, obviously.

282
00:14:52.900 --> 00:14:54.840
Yes, even after I stopped dancing.

283
00:14:55.560 --> 00:14:56.980
You don't spend that much time.

284
00:14:56.980 --> 00:14:58.580
It's an art and it's a discipline.

285
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You simply don't put it away and forget about it.

286
00:15:01.520 --> 00:15:04.300
The dancers I found to be extremely interesting people.

287
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:08.800
My dearest friends are still my dearest friends.

288
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They're dancers and they're wonderful.

289
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:14.460
Or were dancers, I shouldn't say at this time.

290
00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:17.780
And of course I stayed interested in it.

291
00:15:17.900 --> 00:15:20.260
Bradley stayed a close friend of mine until the end of his life.

292
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And Ruth, of course, is a very good friend.

293
00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:26.660
I just love her.

294
00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:27.540
And so does my husband.

295
00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:29.980
My husband has a big crush on Ruth, if you must know.

296
00:15:30.940 --> 00:15:32.680
Ruth has that kind of effect on man.

297
00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:34.040
Yes, she really does.

298
00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:34.840
She really does.

299
00:15:34.940 --> 00:15:37.800
From the first time he met her, he could see no one else in the room.

300
00:15:38.540 --> 00:15:40.360
And Tom noticed the two.

301
00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:42.520
And Ruth was flirting with Brooks.

302
00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:43.780
That's my husband one night.

303
00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:46.500
And I can remember her standing right after we were married.

304
00:15:46.620 --> 00:15:47.520
And Ruth and Tom were over.

305
00:15:48.460 --> 00:15:54.360
And my husband is a Civil War expert authority, so forth.

306
00:15:54.520 --> 00:15:55.200
You don't say buff.

307
00:15:55.280 --> 00:15:56.360
I'm thinking of other words.

308
00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:00.620
And she said someday, she's looking up at him and saying inimitably,

309
00:16:00.780 --> 00:16:03.200
someday you must tell me all about the war.

310
00:16:04.300 --> 00:16:06.240
So Brooks started talking to her.

311
00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:08.620
We couldn't hear him, but Tom was standing next to me.

312
00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:12.560
And he said, you know, Betsy, I think he's going to right now.

313
00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.200
Did she always flirt with men?

314
00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:17.860
Oh, certainly.

315
00:16:18.340 --> 00:16:19.340
She's a born flirt.

316
00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:21.580
And does it very well.

317
00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.320
And it's enchanting to watch.

318
00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:26.960
Good performance.

319
00:16:27.400 --> 00:16:28.640
A very good performance.

320
00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:29.900
But not serious.

321
00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:31.800
Oh, well, at that.

322
00:16:31.820 --> 00:16:32.700
No, I don't think so.

323
00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:34.120
I think it's perfectly native to her.

324
00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:35.100
I think she's very feminine.

325
00:16:36.900 --> 00:16:40.180
Now, you've known Ruth and known about her work intimately, really,

326
00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:41.780
for what, 50 years, at least?

327
00:16:41.980 --> 00:16:43.220
Oh dear, it seems so.

328
00:16:43.280 --> 00:16:44.220
Yes, of course.

329
00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:45.180
It would have to be.

330
00:16:45.340 --> 00:16:51.920
Now, where would you rank her work, Betsy, in terms of her contributions

331
00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:53.320
and in terms of her accomplishments?

332
00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:58.300
Grown-up woman that you are now and no longer star-struck young woman

333
00:16:58.300 --> 00:17:00.300
in the Court of Ally, what would you say?

334
00:17:05.260 --> 00:17:07.280
Well, I'm trying to line them all up.

335
00:17:08.840 --> 00:17:12.060
The times change, you see, and somebody is great at one point

336
00:17:12.060 --> 00:17:13.160
and not at another.

337
00:17:15.520 --> 00:17:20.820
I don't know, Messines, for instance, you probably never saw any of his work,

338
00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.580
was fabulous when he came over here and did symphonic ballets.

339
00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:25.520
Nobody had ever seen it.

340
00:17:25.520 --> 00:17:28.740
This was, again, a modern ballet, but mostly ballet.

341
00:17:28.740 --> 00:17:33.200
With a ballet, Ruth, they probably wouldn't go very well now.

342
00:17:34.320 --> 00:17:38.160
I don't know how long the Balanchine hysteria will go

343
00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:42.420
because it is so, well, I don't want to say one-dimensional,

344
00:17:42.460 --> 00:17:47.640
but this is a one type of thing, as opposed to a repertoire company.

345
00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:49.740
See, Ruth always had a repertoire company.

346
00:17:50.540 --> 00:17:51.360
I think of her as a choreographer.

347
00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:55.420
I'm thinking of her choreographers, which is entirely different

348
00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.360
from the Balanchine company, which doesn't change style.

349
00:17:58.760 --> 00:18:01.280
They do different ballets, but they do them all in the same style.

350
00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:08.880
In hers, she switched from Spanish to modern to jazz to so forth.

351
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:10.740
Entirely different thing.

352
00:18:10.760 --> 00:18:13.080
You've got to be fast and you've got to be smarter

353
00:18:13.080 --> 00:18:15.080
to do that sort of thing.

354
00:18:15.800 --> 00:18:22.740
As far as Americans go, I think she's superior to DeMille in that.

355
00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:29.100
Agnes DeMille always does the same type of thing.

356
00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:30.780
Now, in a way, she's probably been forced into it

357
00:18:30.780 --> 00:18:32.480
because people wanted her to do it

358
00:18:33.500 --> 00:18:36.520
after she was successful with Rodeo first, certainly.

359
00:18:39.040 --> 00:18:41.460
But I think Ruth is better than that.

360
00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:43.120
I think she's given it a lot more thought.

361
00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:45.960
Agnes copied herself to such a degree, you had to be careful

362
00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:48.980
you didn't get the steps mixed up because you would occasionally

363
00:18:48.980 --> 00:18:50.780
find yourself doing the same one in two shows.

364
00:18:51.520 --> 00:18:51.900
Oh, my.

365
00:18:52.120 --> 00:18:53.020
Well, that happens.

366
00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:55.220
That can happen.

367
00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:59.000
But it was pretty much the same style and the same approach

368
00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:01.420
even though her ballets were different.

369
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:04.500
Agnes' best one, I always thought, was Fall River

370
00:19:04.500 --> 00:19:08.200
which was not in her American galloping horses medium at all.

371
00:19:10.580 --> 00:19:12.580
But I think she's better than that.

372
00:19:12.760 --> 00:19:14.260
Certainly, we'll never rank with Balanchine

373
00:19:14.260 --> 00:19:17.220
who seems to be the top, recognized top genius.

374
00:19:17.340 --> 00:19:19.500
I think some of his work is absolutely marvelous.

375
00:19:20.080 --> 00:19:22.360
There was a time I didn't like it when they were all out

376
00:19:22.360 --> 00:19:26.600
in black leotards and looking like something from a prison camp

377
00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:29.640
when they couldn't afford sets and all that kind of thing.

378
00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:32.040
I thought it was pretty boring.

379
00:19:33.740 --> 00:19:36.320
But I must say, he's very, very good.

380
00:19:36.360 --> 00:19:37.920
I think he's probably top-ranking.

381
00:19:37.940 --> 00:19:41.640
He should certainly come in after Balanchine, before DeMille.

382
00:19:43.620 --> 00:19:45.980
But when things change and whatnot,

383
00:19:46.260 --> 00:19:48.940
then certain ballets are in and out.

384
00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:51.680
Do you think she's been unacr- oh.

385
00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:52.680
I need to change tape.