Melissa Hayden, 83; N.Y. City Ballet Principal, Longtime Dance Teacher

Melissa Hayden, a lyrical, exquisite dancer who performed with the New York City Ballet for more than 20 years, died Wednesday, her family said. She was 83.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early July and died at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., according to son Stuart Coleman.

At the New York City Ballet, she was a soloist from 1953 to 1954 and a principal dancer from 1955 to 1973. Famed choreographer and ballet master George Balanchine, who started the company, helped Hayden develop her style -- vulnerable yet strong -- with roles in “Agon,” “The Figure in the Carpet” and “La Source.”

On her 20th anniversary with the ballet, dance critic Clive Barnes wrote: “She has survived and survived, and, more pertinently, she has gotten better and better. New York City Ballet’s Melissa Hayden is its greatest dancer.”

When Hayden announced her retirement in 1973, Balanchine created “Cortege Hongrois,” a ballet in her honor, and at the company’s spring gala she was awarded the Handel Medallion, the city’s highest cultural award.

Upon her retirement, Martin Bernheimer, then the music and dance critic of the Los Angeles Times, said that “no other dancer in this incredibly well-endowed company commands her special combinations of grace and grandeur, assertion and suavity, strength and poise. At 50

Hayden also performed the ballerina role in Charlie Chaplin’s movie “Limelight” and wrote three books, “Melissa Hayden -- Off Stage and On,” “Ballet Exercises” and “Dancer to Dancer.”

After leaving the New York City Ballet, Hayden taught at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She went on to teach at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem in 1983 and did so until a month ago, school officials said.

“Melissa Hayden’s life perfectly mirrors the responsibilities and privileges of great artists,” school Chancellor John Mauceri said in a statement. “She danced an extraordinary 28 years as one of the world’s greatest ballerinas. She then taught an equally astonishing 23 years at the North Carolina School of Arts.”

Hayden, who was born Mildred Herman in Toronto and was known to her friends and family as Milly, started her dance training in Boris Volkoff’s Ballet School when she was 13. After four years there, she moved to New York City.

She had a brief stint in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall before joining Ballet Theatre, becoming a soloist in 1945. She performed with that company until 1949 and from 1952 to 1954.

She married Donald Hugh Coleman in 1954 and had two children. Information on survivors was not immediately available.