Thamara de Swirsky

Thamara de Swirsky was born in St. PetersburgHarry Prescott Hanaford, Dixie Hines, eds. [https://books.google.com/books?id=tpafAAAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA95 Who's who in Music and Drama] (H. P. Hanaford 1914): 95. into a prosperous Russian family. She studied piano in Paris and Munich, and dance in St. Petersburg.Rudolph Aronson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=mJmfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA212 Theatrical and Musical Memoirs] (McBride Nast 1913): 212-214.

Her claim on the title "Countess" was disputed. Her mother, Zenaide de Podwissotski, may have been a medical doctor in Paris before accompanying Thamara to the United States.[https://books.google.com/books?id=TfxHAQAAMAAJ&dq=Countess+de+Swirsky&pg=PA101 "Is She Really a Russian Noble?"] Town Talk (November 12, 1910): 13.

De Swirsky, publicized in 1911 as having the "most musical body in the world",[https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&d=MDP19110504-01.2.24# "Countess Who Has Most Musical Body in World"] Montrose Daily Press (May 4, 1911): 4. via Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection "created a sensation" in the United States with her barefoot dancing.[https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19101113.2.136.49 "Thamara de Swirsky, Russian Countess Who Will Appear in Novel Barefoot Dance in Auditorium"] Los Angeles Herald (November 13, 1910): III7. via California Digital Newspaper Collection Reviewers assured (or warned) readers that, while her feet were bare, she did not dance nude.Andrew L. Erdman, [https://books.google.com/books?id=b_VTCgAAQBAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA104 Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895–1915] (McFarland 2007): 104. {{ISBN|9781476613291}} "Her costumes are triumphs of sartorial amplitude," declared one disappointed critic. "They leave everything to the imagination."Edward F. O'Day, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TfxHAQAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA106 "Thamara de Swirsky Disappointed"] San Francisco Daily Times (November 12, 1910): 8. She also performed a "bat dance" with billowing sheer fabric wings.Shaemas O'Sheel, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Vs01AQAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA195 "On with the Dance"] Forum (February 1911): 195.Hrabina Thamara de Swirsky (1888-1961), tancerka, tańcząca [http://cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/dmuseion/docmetadata?id=30757 "Fledermauss valse"] (ujęcie całej postaci), Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie. She was the last advertised performer to appear at the Coliseum Garden Theatre in Raton, New Mexico, before it was destroyed in a 1911 fire.F. Stanley, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jUOs3A994xUC&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA169 The Grant That Maxwell Bought] (Sunstone Press 2008): 169. {{ISBN|9780865346529}}

File:Thamara de Swirsky.jpg]]

Thamara de Swirsky also played piano as part of some of her performances.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/501852452/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/1 "De Swirsky Seen in Dances"] Boston Globe (October 11, 1911): 5. "Her style of dancing is her own," explained one Los Angeles reporter.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/159630056/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/2 "Tantalizing Thamara"] Los Angeles Times (November 5, 1910): I13. Beyond the vaudeville stage, at the Metropolitan OperaGeorge Dorris, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25598207 "Dance and the New York Opera War, 1906-1912"] Dance Chronicle 32(2)(2009): 210. she appeared as a dancer in Orfeo ed Euridice and Zar und Zimmermann, both in 1909.Gerald Fitzgerald, ed., [https://books.google.com/books?id=ff9jDAAAQBAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PR251 Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists] (Springer 2016): 224/4C. {{ISBN|9781349119769}} In January 1910 she danced in Delibes' Lakmé with the Boston Opera, at English's Opera House.[https://books.google.com/books?id=06ABAAAAYAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA67 "Thamara de Swirsky, the Unadorned Russian Dancer"] Indianapolis Medical Journal (February 15, 1910): 67. In 1912 she performed a version of her dances in a short silent film[https://www.celebri.com/movie/classical-dances-by-countess-thamara-de-swirsky/1912/1322286/ Classical Dances by Countess Thamara de Swirsky] (1912). for Independent Moving Pictures.[https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRJAQAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=RA7-PA25 "Notes of the Week"] The Moving Picture News (February 24, 1912): 25. In 1913 she was part of an advertising campaign for Seduction perfume.Verbinina, [https://verbinina.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/ads-for-seduction-perfume-by-gelle-freres-part-2/ "Ads for Séduction perfume by Gellé frères (part 2)"] Verbinina (July 3, 2014).

Her opinions, whims, and demands made news.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12030625/thamara_de_swirsky_on_american_women/ "Frown Too Much and Wear Corsets"] Times Dispatch (August 21, 1910): 31. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She smoked cigars and cigarettes.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12030781/the_knave_july_1912/ "The Knave"] Oakland Tribune (June 9, 1912): 26. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She was said to have insured each of her toes for $10,000 in 1910.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/159506009/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/3 "Each Pink Toe, Ten Thousand Dollars"] Los Angeles Times (November 16, 1910): II1. In 1914, she was a member of Anna Pavlova's company, and her pleas for a more humid New York hotel room were reported in the New York Times.[https://www.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/97671603/AA5A789221E246BFPQ/3 "Asked for Damp Room"] New York Times (November 1, 1914): C4. Italian artist Piero Tozzi painted a portrait of de Swirsky, titled "His Flame of Life", when she turned away his romantic interest.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/159537901/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/5 "Eyes Show Russia's Sorrow"] Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1911): II1.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/159543404/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/6 "Will Countess Wed Painter?"] Los Angeles Times (December 5, 1910): I18.

During World War I she performed in New York, combining dance and "dramatic art".[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12033879/thamara_swirskaya_1918/ "Thamara Swirskaya to Dance on Thursday"] New-York Tribune (January 13, 1918): 35. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} In 1919 she appeared in a silent film, The Mad Woman, made by the Stage Women's War Relief Fund.[https://books.google.com/books?id=EuFNAQAAMAAJ&dq=Stage+Women%27s+War+Relief+Swirskaya&pg=PA183 "When Broadway Favorites Saw Themselves as Others See Them"] Theatre Magazine (March 1919): 183.Margaret McIvor-Tyndall, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9jEcAQAAMAAJ&dq=Stage+Women%27s+War+Relief+Swirskaya&pg=PA285 "What Women of the Theatre are Doing for Uncle Sam"] National Service (May 1919): 285.

In 1910, John Jacob Astor bought 25 seats for one of her concerts in Newport, Rhode Island, and sat by himself in the center to watch her performance.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/138912360/ "Countess de Swirsky Tells Marguerite Martyn," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 1911, image 1]

File:Thamara_de_Swirsky,_dancer,_sketched_by_Marguerite_Martyn,_1911.jpg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and published April 23, 1911]]

In 1933 there were reports that Swirskaya was engaged to marry twice-widowed New York lawyer Frederick G. Fischer and that his family committed him to an asylum to prevent the match.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12034260/thamara_swirskaya_engaged_1933/ "Aids Lawyer Fiance"] Salem News (October 3, 1933): 5. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/502013376/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/1 "Dragged the Rich, Aristocratic Old Lawyer to an Asylum as He Was to Wed the 'Perfect Body' Danseuse"] Atlanta Constitution (April 15, 1934): SM4.

Thamara de Swirsky professed particular love for Los Angeles as early as 1910, recalling that "I knew when I first touched foot to your soil that here I would find the warmth and the glow which would call out the best that is in me."[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/159543027/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/4 "Passion of Art Drives Her On"] Los Angeles Times (November 22, 1910): II6. She settled in Los Angeles after her dance career; she taught and played piano for a living. She died there in 1961, weeks after she was badly injured in a traffic accident during a storm,[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/168041972/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/19 "Storm Figures in 7 Deaths, 200 Accidents"] Los Angeles Times (December 3, 1961): A. aged 73 years.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/168035880/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/7 "Rites Planned for Tamara Swirskaya"] Los Angeles Times (December 28, 1961): B11.

There is a statuette of Thamara de Swirsky in a dance pose, by Paolo Troubetzkoy, in the collection of the Getty Museum. Her unpublished memoirs have also been discovered in recent years.Anne-Lise Desmas, [http://www.getty.edu/museum/programs/lectures/desmas_lecture.html "The Dancer Statuette by Paolo Troubetzkoy and the Incredible Life of Countess Thamara Swirskaya"] Getty Center (February 2, 2014).

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• {{IMDB name|nm3191943}}.
• [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/jerome-robbins-dance-division-photograph-files#/?tab=navigation&roots=87522240-c5fd-012f-308c-58d385a7bc34/112:048e64c0-c5fe-012f-3626-58d385a7bc34 Photographs] of Thamara de Swirsky in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division Photograph Files, New York Public Library.
• [https://www.loc.gov/item/ggb2004005791/ Photograph] of Thamara de Swirsky in the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.
• [http://cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/dmuseion/docmetadata?id=30760 Photograph] of Thamara de Swirsky in an Egyptian-inspired costume and pose, from the Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie.
• [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp135355/tamara-swirskaya Photographs] of Tamara Swirskaya by Bassano Ltd, in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

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Category:1888 births

Category:1961 deaths

Category:Russian vaudeville performers

Category:Female dancers from the Russian Empire

Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States

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