Ballet Was Good Grounding

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31060, 16 May 1966, Page 2

Ballet Was Good Grounding

Dancing feet have taken Miss Vivienne James almost right round the world and last week, after an absence of seven years, she returned to her home town, Christchurch, in the chorus line of “Hello, Dolly!”

Miss James was known in Christchurch as Miss Vivienne Jacobs. Her name was changed by deed poll six months ago, when she was a flight hostess. T was told Jacobs was a Jewish name and I would not be able to land in countries like Lebanon and Egypt with a Jewish name.” She cheerfully admits that hers has been a glamorous existence and has none of the usual sad tales of long hours, hard work and favouritism, that would deter other young New Zealanders embarking on such a precarious career. Since she left New Zealand she has danced in Australia, England, South Africa and Paris and has modelled in Australia, London, and South Africa. In London she had some small parts on television and accumulated the miscellaneous workaday experi-ence-working as a barmaid, baby-sitting or apple picking —that is usual with all “seasonal” workers.

Originally, Miss James trained for classical ballet and she toured with the New Zealand Ballet Company for 18 months. At sft 7in she discovered that she was really too tall for classical ballet. “With toe-shoes on you are about two inches taller. In my case it was hard to find male partners who were tall enough.”

After she had auditioned successfully for the Australian version of “My Fair Lady,” Miss James discovered that she liked modern dancing, though she has never regretted the good grounding of her classical training. “Modelling work was quite easy to find in Australia because people are always ready to try new faces,” she said. One of the television commercials she made for a shampoo company in Australia is still shown in New Zealand. Her mother, who ran a modelling school in Dunedin for a short time, had given her daughter a sound training, and wherever she goes, Miss James likes to take on modelling work as an “extra.” “It’s pretty competitive in the high fashion world, but I am not really the high fashion sort and I stick to casual wear,” she said. From Australia, Miss James went to London, where she took modelling jobs and did television commercials, until she toured with the South African “My Fair Lady” company. She was understudy to Mrs ’Opkins in the “My Fair Lady” and played the part about 30 times. Three months in Paris last year did not leave Miss James with stars in her eyes. She danced at the Casino de Paris —rather similar to the Lido, which has the famous “Blue Bell Girls.” “I love France but I hate Paris,” she admitted frankly. “French people can be very rude. We even got spat at when we were trying to buy our tickets to London. We had committed no crime, only, we were English.” Her sojourn in Paris made her homesick for her Australian friends and she went to Sydney where her mother had

settled. After playing in “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Camelot” she decided to give up the theatre business. She joined an overseas airline as a flight hostess, travelling to London, Singapore, Karachi and Cairo, but she found the pace of everything too fast. “Believe it or not, I have led a sheltered life in the theatre,” she said. Then followed a short engagement at the Chevron Hilton Hotel in Australia and finally “Hello, Dolly!” On the present tour there is less time for outside engagements because she is involved in the theatre workshop, which is run by Tom Troupe, the television and film actor, and husband of the leading lady, Carole Cook. About 20 singers and dancers and actors come to the theatre every morning to work for Mr Troupe. While in New Zealand they have rehearsed 58 scenes from different plays. “We usually perform just for ourselves,” said Miss James.

Miss James spent yesterday at the beach at Amberley, while other members of the

cast went sightseeing on hired bicycles and tandems. “That’s what I like best about my kind of life, meeting people and seeing places.” Only occasionally does Miss James feel nostalgic for a more settled existence, and she says that these feelings .do not last long,