David Blair

Who was David Blair?

David Blair was a renowned British ballet dancer and a leading star of the Royal Ballet company in London during the 1950s and 1960s.

Born David Butterfield in Yorkshire, England in 1932, Blair started taking ballet lessons after watching his sister in a class at their local dance school. He won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Ballet School and joined the school in 1946, aged 14. Being very short in comparison with many of his classmates, Blair's acceptance into the school was on the understanding that he had to grow significantly during his first term or would receive injections of growth-inducing hormones. Although he grew enough to satisfy the staff of the school, Blair was still one of the shortest boys and as a result the school thought he would become a character dancer.

In 1947, at the age of 15, he joined the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and changed his name to David Blair and later in 1953, Blair joined the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden where he became a Principal dancer. Blair left the company shortly after the arrival of Rudolph Nureyev and there is speculation that his departure was because after the retirement of Michael Somes, Blair was the natural replacement to partner Margot Fonteyn, however Nureyev was partnered with Fonteyn and much of the publicity of the Royal Ballet became focussed solely on the Fonteyn-Nureyev partnership.