Ruby Keeler – comme jadis

…it’s the title Joan Miro’s creation representing a collage made of feather, cork and a hatpin on wood panel. “Portrait of a dancer” is one of four other collages titled “Spanish Dancer” revealing the beauty, the sensuality of women’s body dancing. Miro created this collage in 1928. In the same period, in America, a dancer was about to become a star. Born in 1910 as Ethel Hilda Keeler she was known later as Ruby Keeler. She was actress, singer and, most important, a dancer. In Hollywood she is best known for her role in the musical “42^nd Street” alongside another American star, Dick Powell. This movie made of her real star. But, before she became a movie actress, she performed as dancer in many places. The most important is Ziegfeld Follies a “copy” of Parisian Folies Bergère. Ruby Keeler was a ravishing young woman and an excellent dancer. It is said that, the first time that Florenz Ziegfeld saw he,r he cannot helped himself and send her a lot of roses with a note were he wrote “May I make you a star?” (Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia). She stayed on Broadway at Ziegfeld’s show from 1924 (she was only fourteen) until she married in 1928 and she returned in the show a year later. Maybe the most beautiful image of her is from this period (1928-1929); a picture took by Alfred Cheney Johnston, a black and white photo presenting Ruby as a Ziegfeld girl, one of the most delicate, expressive portraits of a dancer I ever saw.

Ruby Keeler