An obituary I forgot: In May of 2021, highly respected ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise, had died after a series of strokes. He was 86 years old. He is perhaps best known to movie audiences for his appearance as one of the brothers (green shirt) in 1954's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. His death leaves veteran actor Russ Tamblyn as the last remaining of the brothers.
D'Amboise was only 20 when he was in the film. Mostly, though, his fame rested on the NYC ballet and other projects. He won numerous awards and was highly accomplished.
What is funny is he was born Joseph Ahearn, and you would think this would be an okay name, even for a dancer, but his mother thought otherwise and persuade her husband to change the family name from Ahearn to d'Amboise, which had been her family name, because it had sounded more aristocratic.
The NYT wrote a long obituary of the late dancer, which was deserved. As an aside, the paper still hasn't acknowledged the death of Brides co-star Tommy Rall, the best dancer ever to appear in film and who died in 2020.
After joining City Ballet, Mr. d’Amboise was soon dancing solo roles, including the lead in Lew Christensen’s “Filling Station,” which led to an invitation from the film director Stanley Donen to join the cast of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954).
In 1956 he married the City Ballet soloist Carolyn George, who died in 2009. In addition to his daughter Charlotte, he is survived by their two sons, George and Christopher, a choreographer and former City Ballet principal dancer; another daughter, Catherine d’Amboise (she and Charlotte are twins); and six grandchildren. Two brothers and his sister died before him.
Mr. d’Amboise appeared in featured roles in two films in 1956 — “Carousel,” appearing alongside Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, and Michael Curtiz’s “The Best Things in Life are Free.” But he remained committed to ballet and to Balanchine.
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