TV REVIEW : Ballerina’s Grace Under Pressure in ‘Margot Fonteyn Story’ on PBS

Made before her husband’s death last November, “The Margot Fonteyn Story” surveys an amazing life and career through the former ballerina’s reminiscences, along with interviews with teachers and colleagues. This oral history is supplemented by an invaluable assortment of home movie, newsreel and television excerpts--some of them dating back to the late 1930s--that bring personal and artistic milestones vividly alive.

Previously available on the home video market, the 90-minute memoir comes to PBS tonight (at 9 on Channels 15 and 24, at 10 on Channel 28; and Sunday at 9 p.m. on Channel 50).

It shows Fonteyn on the eve of her 70th birthday living on a ranch in Panama with her husband, former diplomat Roberto Arias. Looking spectacularly youthful, she tells her story brightly, though she often becomes merely the voice-over to a mixture of vintage and recent films shot in London, Shanghai, New York and Panama.

Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton, Robert Helpmann, Rudolf Nureyev and others supply their own insights and anecdotes--but curiously absent are Michael Somes, Fonteyn’s former partner (post-Helpmann, pre-Nureyev) and any of her potential rivals at the Sadler’s Wells (later Royal) Ballet. Less tribute and more perspective would have been helpful.

In contrast to the sedately adoring resume of her career, the segment devoted to Panamanian politics in the ‘60s illustrates Fonteyn’s grace under pressure as she deals with everything from being jailed to the crisis of Arias’ permanent paralysis after an assassination attempt. Film research here has been exhaustive and fruitful.

Similarly, in the dancing sequences we seldom see clips from Fonteyn’s familiar theatrical features (all currently available on home video). Instead, producer/director Patricia Foy supplies far rarer footage, mostly shot for British television.

These vault treasures include a 1966 performance of the Shadow solo from “Ondine” (much different in mood and attack from Fonteyn’s interpretation in the 1959 “Royal Ballet” film) and a “Romeo and Juliet” balcony scene, also from 1966, that shows us Nureyev exactly as he should be remembered.