Rudolf Nureyev

The Life

Julie Kavanagh

Born on a train in Stalin’s Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet’s first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement – both on and off stage.

Nureyev’s achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov’s thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor’s wife; defected to the West in l961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; gave his rabid sexuality full reign; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia’s unknown ballet masterpieces in the West.

Julie Kavanagh’s uncompromising and magnificent biography, ten years in the making, is a brilliant tribute to a superstar the world can never forget.

First published:: 2007
Published by:: Fig Tree
Length:: Hardcover 787 pages

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About the author

Julie Kavanagh trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School, and is the author of Secret Muses: The Life of Frederick Ashton. She has worked as ballet critic of The Spectator; Arts Editor of Harpers & Queen; and London Editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She is married to the ex-Royal Ballet dancer, now dance film maker, Ross MacGibbon, and has two sons.