Christmas at Blackthorn Castle

Crown rack of spring lamb with rosemary and oregano 

The photo: A crown rack of lamb that will melt in your mouth! It’s something that Mrs. Bridges has made the castle’s kitchen famous for.

Christmas at the castle: Christmas day dawned cold with temps in the high 30s (F) with heavy rain almost all day. Fortunately none of us had to go outside unless we wanted to. We have a lovely fifteen foot spruce as a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments handed down from earlier holders of the title augmented down through the years. The lights are new, but the rest is very traditional. Presents were exchanged before breakfast. Though there are no children present Bea at eighteen the youngest girl present seemed almost as excited as I remember being when I was six, the Christmas before my mother died. This year I got lingerie (The giver looks forward to watching me take it off or ripping it off me himself.), perfume and gift certificates to Freed and Gaynor Minden as well as a lovely amethyst (my birthstone) necklace. Marvin gave me a special gift I had been looking for seemingly for ages, but hadn’t been able to find. I’m going to write about that in a separate post.

For the most part I gave practical token but useful fun gifts; razors (beard burn on breasts can be very annoying), condoms and Viagra for the men and Caya diaphragms, spermicide, EllaOne, remote controlled vibis (by Lelo) to be worn in the vagina and toe pads for the women. Caya should be appreciated by men too because the matte textured dome stimulates the glans remarkably and the removal dome can be used by a lover to stimulate the wearer’s G-spot. Just saying…   Later, in a private moment I gave my wards small designer leather bags fitted out and fully equipped as slit-kits.

Menstrual cycle status: Later Christmas morning my wards, their French ballet boyfriends and I took our obligatory ballet and pointe classes to stay flexible for the anticipated ballet and dive-sex. All my wards have frameless, stringless copper bead GyneFix IUDs implanted so they cycle naturally. When I lived in Las Vegas and my wards lived with me they were in menstrual synchrony with me because we sweated so much together that their bodies synched to my pheromones. Now that we live apart Bea and Willow cycle on their own while the Dryads, Bryony and Claire are beginning to sync with my 28 day cycle. Christmas day I was CD14 and ovulated while the Dryads were about CD9 and fertile. Bea and Willow were CD 20 something and luteal.

A first dip in The Wells: The women all followed me down to the shallowest (64 ft.) of the wells. We inserted our latex flat spring diaphragms, used as flood insurance, in case men joined us and wanted dive-sex. But none did as they were glued to the telly binge watching one sport program after another. I had Carla hang a net at 30 feet in the shallow pool as a precaution so if there was an uncontrolled descent the diver wouldn’t fall to the bottom.  

We wore thong bikinis, flippers and swim caps to keep the chemicals out of our hair. Carla checked the fit of our OTS Guardian FFMs and buoyancy compensators with integral weight pockets. She has checked that all the masks were in good repair before we got to the equipment room Willow, Bea and my Guardians have gotten a lot of use but Bryony and Claire just got theirs so they are still getting used to wearing them. One of the nice things is that we can all talk to one another on the comm. units while underwater and we can all hear each other scream, moan, whimper and gasp in orgasm.

Pool temperatures: For Olympic swimming, the Red Cross and FINA (The international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming and open water diving), have set the water temperature for competitive swimming between 77° to 82° F (25°-28°C), and 81°F (27°C) for synchronized swimming. Warmer water is less dense and therefore less friction as a swimmers body moves through it. Standard water temperatures ensure that all performances are on a level state of conditions. I have my pools temperatures set at 79° (F) and that is very comfortable. 

Christmas dinner: Dinner on Christmas day for my wards, their boyfriends, Carla my 29 y/o Divemaster and her diver boyfriend, Chris my male Gyn and a ballerina girlfriend and Marvin and I went extremely well. The menu was a typical Christmas feast with turkey and crown rack of spring lamb (for which the castle kitchen is famous) stuffing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, candid yams, mince pie and ice cream, coffee and hot or ice tea. And Christmas Crackers in which were small favors for each guest.

Sloe Brandy: After dinner the Barony’s famous (or perhaps a better term is infamous) Sloe brandy was served. It is distilled, aged and bottled at the castle from the fruit of the ubiquitous blackthorn bushes used to hedge fields and roads on the Barony. The fruit, called a "sloe", is a drupe 10–12 millimeters (0.39–0.47 in) in diameter, black with a purple-blue waxy bloom, ripening in autumn, and harvested—traditionally, at least in the UK, in October or November after the first frosts.

Charades: After dinner had settled we played a game of charades using the huge wardrobe of costumes and props that had been accumulated by Edith my predecessor. The subject for the evening was film stars from the 50s to present. The Brits seem to love dressing up especially the men who love mincing about in high heels and womens clothes. I think that must be from the sexually repressive upbringing of all-male schools, corporal punishment and cold showers that warp their sexuality. Fortunately some of them make lovely women (until you get their clothes off) so they can be great fun to play charades with!

I thought standouts in men’s roles were: Marvin who did a marvelous impression of Cary Grant “Judy, Judy, Judy”, and Chris who made an amazing Clark Gable, “Frankly Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.” Go figure!

Among characters from dance films I portrayed during the evening - with the help of Emily, my dresser, who got me in and out of costume and makeup quickly with her skill as a studio costumer and makeup expert - I became: ‘Olympia’ the Moira Shearer role as a mechanical doll that comes to life in The Tales of Hoffmann (1951); the Cyd Charisse role of ‘The Widow’ dressed in black tights, black pointes, black elbow length gloves and a black bustier with circular white breast accent in  the film Black Tights (1961); and The Natalie Portman role as ‘Nina Sayers’ costumed as the Swan Queen in Black Swan (2010). What fun!

 

 

 

Roland Petit’s Telegraph Obit

Roland Petit and Cyd Charisse in Black Tights 1960

This obit provides a more European perspective on RP’s life.

The Telegraph
Wednesday 13 July, 2011
Theatre Obituaries

Roland Petit

Roland Petit, the choreographer who died on July 10 aged 87, was France's major creative figure in post-war ballet, responsible for defining a new French chic and erotic frankness in dance, typified above all by his wife, the glamorous star Zizi Jeanmaire. He was also probably the favorite choreographer of the world's greatest ballerinas.

An outstanding classical dancer as a youth, Roland Petit swiftly decided on a career as a rebel against the traditionalism of the Paris Opera Ballet, and before the age of 25 had created two of his most iconic ballets, Le Jeune Homme et la mort and Carmen, with the sultry young Jeanmaire as the lethal female destroying a hapless male in both.

These ballets caused a sensation worldwide and Petit and Jeanmaire swiftly became the most exciting names in French dance, closely associating with Jean Cocteau, Edith Piaf, Yves Montand and the new intellectuals of Left Bank Paris.

However Petit was also wooing Margot Fonteyn, prima ballerina of Sadler's Wells Ballet, with whom he was having an affair. Fonteyn had cosmetic surgery to shorten her nose at his suggestion (though the operation was redone in London). When still in her twenties, she seriously considered leaving London to join him in Paris, which prompted his other mistress, Jeanmaire, to issue him with an ultimatum.

To reassure Jeanmaire, Petit created Carmen, an encapsulation of Bizet's opera in ballet, which premiered in 1949 at the Prince's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, and became an instant world hit. Jeanmaire bobbed her hair short and wore a scant black corset, which, coupled with the candid seductiveness of her pas de deux with Petit, caused both shock and delight among the crowds who rushed to see it. One observer commented that he could see men's trouser buttons popping during the performance.

But the leading English choreographer, Frederick Ashton, then developing into a classical dancemaker of genius at Covent Garden, mourned that he would be seen as out of date.

Fonteyn herself soon decided that a Parisian ballet life with Petit would be more about style and short-term effects than about durably challenging choreography, and she resumed her career with the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

Petit and Renée Jeanmaire married in 1954, and the choreographer reinvented her as "Zizi", one of the immortal icons of Parisian nightlife.

Roland Petit was born on January 13 1924 in Villemomble, a Paris suburb, the elder son of a French café owner and an Italian shoemaker. His mother, Rose Repetto, would leave to set up the Repetto dance shoe business, now an international concern. His father,

Edmond Petit, encouraged his young son in dance lessons and at just 16 he was accepted by the Paris Opera Ballet, then suffering the first straits of the Second World War.

Fast-tracked as a soloist by the director Serge Lifar (Diaghilev's last protégé) the teenager was much influenced by the cosmopolitan artistic intellectualism erupting in wartime Paris, and was taken under the wing of two leading Diaghilev associates, Jean Cocteau and Boris Kochno.

At the end of the war, aged 21 and with backing from his father, Petit founded the anti-establishment Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées, taking two unorthodox but brilliant young dancers with him, Jean Babilée and Renée Jeanmaire, who would become icons of the new French dance.

Petit reinvented the suffering, virginal ballerina as a provocative, irresistible femme fatale of the modern day. His post-war works remain some of his most enduring, Les Forains, Le Jeune Homme et la mort (for Babilée), Les demoiselles de la nuit (for Fonteyn in Paris), Carmen, Le Loup, Cyrano de Bergerac and Notre-Dame de Paris, boldly theatrical in design, all recently performed by Paris Opera Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet among other companies.

When Petit and Jeanmaire toured the Ballets de Paris to Hollywood in 1955 his charm conquered Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth, among others. Showered with Hollywood invitations, to Jeanmaire's chagrin he chose a younger lookalike, Leslie Caron, to be the lead in his 1955 Fred Astaire musical Daddy Long Legs. He also choreographed the films Hans Christian Andersen with Danny Kaye and Zizi Jeanmaire, The Glass Slipper, again for Caron, and Folies-Bergère, with Jeanmaire and Eddie Constantine.

He made the film Black Tights (1960) to show Zizi Jeanmaire's magnetic balletic gifts alongside Cyd Charisse and Moira Shearer, but he now set about reinventing the Paris revue around his wife, exploring new levels of luxury and sophistication for her many talents. Not only did Jeanmaire dance like an angel in any style, dressed flamboyantly (and sometimes minimally) by costumiers such as Erté, but she possessed an alluring singing voice and a worldly verbal wit that sold countless records.

They became the power couple of Sixties Parisian cultural life, wearing Yves Saint Laurent and collaborating with Andy Warhol.

Petit briefly returned to his alma mater, the Paris Opera Ballet, as director in 1970, but quit after a few months to buy the Casino de Paris specifically to feature Zizi in a supercharged new kind of music-hall, which flourished for five years.

In 1972 he took up leadership of the Ballet de Marseille, to which for the next 25 years the world's major ballerinas beat a trail, Maya Plisetskaya, Natalia Makarova, Alessandra Ferri and Altynai Asylmuratova among them, seeking to dance his flagrantly attractive female roles.

Meanwhile his early ballets proved a magnet for the great male ballet stars of the 1970s. Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov filmed Le Jeune Homme and Carmen, each partnering the evergreen Jeanmaire. Later Petit would choreograph for Baryshnikov's 1985 feature film White Nights.

In Britain, however, Roland Petit remained derided as a showman, compared unfavorably with the Royal Ballet's choreographers Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. Petit created three ballets for Covent Garden, the slight Ballabile (1950), and two late Fonteyn-Nureyev vehicles, a pop-art Paradise Lost (which Mick Jagger loved) and a Pelléas et Mélisande, both of which were given discouraging critical receptions.

English National Ballet offers a rare British viewing of his more durable works, Carmen, Le Jeune Homme et la mort and L'Arlèsienne, at the London Coliseum next week, which Petit was overseeing when he died at home in Geneva.

Among his unusual ventures were the only ballet Orson Wells ever devised, The Lady in the Ice (1953, London), a 1972 Pink Floyd ballet and a Swan Lake with male swans (1998).

Among his many honours, Roland Petit was a Commander of the Légion d'honneur and a Commander of the French Order of Merit. His wife, now 87, and their daughter, Valentine Petit, survive him.

Roland Petit, Choreographer, Dies at 87

Zizi Jeanmaire and Roland Petit in Carmen

The New York Times
July 10, 2011

Roland Petit, Choreographer, Dies at 87; Conquered Ballet Taboos and Hollywood

By ANNA KISSELGOFF
Roland Petit, France’s leading choreographer after World War II, who swept away time-honored ballet taboos and whose mix of entertainment and art also made his work popular in Hollywood, died Sunday in Geneva. He was 87 and had lived in Switzerland for more than a decade.

His death was reported by his wife, the ballerina Zizi Jeanmaire, the Paris Opera Ballet said.

Although Mr. Petit choreographed cheerful films like “Hans Christian Andersen” with Danny Kaye, sex and suffering were the themes of the two early ballets that became his international signature pieces: “Carmen” and “Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.”

Mr. Petit stunned dance and theater audiences in London in New York in 1949 with a frank new eroticism in his ballet version of “Carmen.” Renée (later Zizi) Jeanmaire was the femme fatale in a short tunic and a gamine hairdo who seduced Mr. Petit, as Don José, in an acrobatic duet on the floor. The headline of the positive review by The New York Herald Tribune’s dance critic, Walter Terry, read “Sex and More Sex.”

John Martin, the critic for The New York Times, was less impressed. “Passion and the classical pas de deux are poles apart,” he wrote.

“Carmen” might have been directly accessible in its stylized realism. But Mr. Petit, a dancer as well as a choreographer, displayed a deeper side in his 1946 masterpiece, “Le Jeune Homme et la Mort” (“The Young Man and Death”). Here, he showed the resonant poetic dimension seen in the pieces in which he collaborated with some of France’s major writers, poets, composers and visual artists.

For “Le Jeune Homme,” Jean Cocteau devised a scenario about a bohemian painter in his garret, ostensibly waiting for his sweetheart but eventually embroiled in an existential battle for survival. Jean Babilée, that ballet’s unforgettable star (who also contributed some of the choreography), smoked a real cigarette onstage on a real bed, looked at his real watch and kicked real furniture around before engaging in a violent confrontation with his girlfriend.

The painter hanged himself in despair and his lover revealed herself as an allegorical figure of death before leading the antihero across a surreal rooftop panorama of Paris. Cocteau’s typical touch of the mythic made commonplace fused wonderfully with Petit’s naturalism (as opposed to realism) and use of ballet bravura.

A metaphor for postwar disillusion, the ballet struck a nerve in Europe but also impressed in New York when Ballet Theater presented it in 1951, with Mr. Babilée and Nathalie Philippart.

But it was also an experimental, conceptual work. After the cast had rehearsed it only to jazz, Cocteau suddenly substituted Bach’s Passacaglia for the performances.

Working within two extremes, as represented by the show-business-flavored "Carmen" and the poetic “Jeune Homme,” Mr. Petit remained a subject for debate throughout more than a half-century, in which he choreographed some 150 ballets.

American critics often called him chic. Even French critics began to find him superficial. Yet after he turned to creating ballets based on opera and literature, he could surprise.

In New York in 1980, the National Ballet of Marseille (headed by Mr. Petit since 1972), presented Mr. Petit’s eloquent commentary on Marcel Proust and his work in “Marcel Proust Remembered.” Ms. Jeanmaire carried his ballet version of “Fledermaus” in “The Bat.” His updated view of “Coppélia” had a witty if kinky approach: as Coppélius, he waltzed with a female dummy (the doll Coppélia) strapped to his body.

Karen Kain, now artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, was a guest artist in this “Coppélia.” Among the many ballet stars for whom he choreographed were Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova. Both Mr. Baryshnikov and Mr. Nureyev danced in “Jeune Homme” shortly after they left the Soviet Union for the West.

Mr. Petit also developed the talents of two future stars. When he co-founded Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées, he engaged two teenage dancers, Leslie Caron and Violette Verdy.

Roland Petit was born on Jan. 13, 1924, in Villemomble, near Paris. His father, Edmond Petit, had a restaurant in the Halles district; his mother founded the dancewear company Repetto. Fond of dancing to a player piano in the restaurant, the young Roland was enrolled in the Paris Opera Ballet School at 9 and joined the company’s corps at 16.

Chafing at the company’s restrictions, he left to choreograph in a series organized by the critic Irene Lidova. These performances led Mr. Petit and Lidova to found Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées with Boris Kochno, Serge Diaghilev’s collaborator and secretary.

Mr. Petit left in 1947 to form his own company, Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit. Wooed by Hollywood, he choreographed “Hans Christian Andersen” in 1951 before marrying Ms. Jeanmaire, who survives him, as does their daughter, Valentine Petit. Among the other films he choreographed were “Daddy Long Legs” (1955) “The Glass Slipper” (1955) and “Anything Goes” (1956).

Mr. Petit returned to Paris to choreograph for ballets and music hall revues (some starring his wife). He briefly served as director of the Paris Opera Ballet but resigned after a dispute and later moved to Marseille, where he was director until he left in 1998, reportedly in a disagreement with the management.

Like Maurice Béjart, Mr. Petit sought to reach a wide audience. Yet he had a more solid choreographic foundation, and his early ballets work on an artistic level still valid today.

Ms. Lidova once admitted that Mr. Petit could fall into a “Champagne style.” But she also noted, rightly, that he was an artist of contrasts, “who can be both frivolous and serious, passionate and cruel.”

Personal comment: I first remember seeing Roland Petit in a video of the 1960 film Black Tights with Moira Shearer, Zizi Jeanmaire and Cyd Charisse. Black Tights as well as The Red Shoes were the two films that reinforced my desire to be a ballet dancer.

The next Victoria Page?

Summer Glau tying on her pointes

The Next Victoria Page: Aside from Cyd Charisse and Leslie Caron both of whom went in to films in the 1940s and 50s when the movie star system was still at its height young ballet dancers chosen to star in dance films have not done particularly well with a career in dance. Summer Glau is certainly attractive but the role of the heroine in The Red Shoes, Vicky Page, requires a young and extremely talented dancer. Summer Glau while a talented actress is not Victoria Page! Moira Shearer was 21 y/o when filming began on The Red Shoes in 1947. Summer Glau was born in 1981, is 28, and in my opinion is too old and lacks the talent for the part of an extremely talented ingénue. Shearer had the look, Glau doesn’t! I think it would be a mistake to remake The Red Shoes, but if someone did they should choose a young, talented, professional dancer. Whoever got the part would be forever typecast, which I think would stop a lot of intensely focused women who are serious about making classical ballet a career from accepting the part. Though, competitiveness being what it is in ballet many would kill for the role. Several women who made ballet films in the last few years (in no particular order) are:

1) Leslie Browne – an ABT Soloist - as Emilia Rodgers in The Turning Point (1977)
And, Dancers (1987) Leslie Browne as Nadine

2) Amanda Schull – a SFB corps member - as Jody Sawyer in Center stage (2000)

3) Neve Campbell as Loretta 'Ry' Ryan in The Company (2004) about the Joffrey in Chicago

A wish: I hope no one does a remake of The Red Shoes. You just can’t improve on perfection! And if they do they should choose someone in her early 20s with real talent and a romantic style rather than blazingly fast Balanchine footwork. Now, they could make a Red Shoes like film focusing on a young woman’s obsession with a career on pointe and finding the perfect shoes, while dealing with the typical career trials; eating disorders, STI and pregnancy scares, injuries and competition for roles she had to overcome as she works her way to a principal position with an international company.

Ballerina birth control before the pill

The Prentif cavity rim cervical cap

Ballet boots and Prentif: In addition to UDP (a premium service) at the ranch we offer fantasy ballet encounters with our ballet dancers from Central Europe in standard studio, dressing room or salon settings. Or, we will create a custom setting for the encounter if the client can stand the cost. On request the girls will wear some of the older styles of contraceptive barriers and the Prentif cap is a particular favorite of men who want to recreate the 1930s – 1950s milieu right down to the exact contraception that was widely used by dancers in Europe in the years before the pill became available. Ballet boots that button rather than lace up never really caught on, but the nightclubs, especially in Germany and Austria – between the wars - were deep into ballet related fetishes. The Viennese fetish boot (circa 1900), which sported a heel that was actually longer than the sole of the shoe, thus making standing and/or walking impossible was the ancester of the ballet boot. A creative and enteerprising balletgirl shortened the heels of her Viennese fetish boots and a new style was born that only became resurgent again in the 1980s.

Fetish boots and shoes: A client can choose what fetish footwear his partner will wear. Ballet boots are available in ankle, calf, knee or thigh lengths that the client can help her lace up. In addition, for men with a pointe shoe sole design fetish the following makers pointes are available: Freed, Capezio, Bloch, Gamba, Chacott, Grishko, Russian Pointe, Merlet and Schachtner and pointes from other makers can be worn with two weeks advance notice. At her client’s request his partner will wear a particular maker’s shoes and style so the men can admire the sole patterns on their pointes, or even suck on the platforms, while she is on her back with her feet in the air taking his thrusts against the soft thick latex dome of her Prentif..

In the European cabarets where fetish was king between the great wars abortions were common for unplanned pregnancies that resulted from failed barrier contraceptive methods when oil based lubes were routinely used with latex barriers by unsuspecting women which caused frequent failures especially for new users who hadn’t been properly warned. Of course there were also the tricks where a dancer would arrange for her rivals birth control to fail by slipping punctured condoms into the rivals purse or dance bag when it was known she would be entertaining her lover for a quickie and unlikely to be as careful as she should. The recovery time from the physical, and occasionally mental, effects of an abortion guaranteed that the pregnant woman would be off stage for weeks as she regained her strength and confidence giving a rival an opportunity to steal her roles. We still see some of that today with school girls exchanging a rival’s pills with a dummy pack causing her to get her period or knocked up. Of course with Plan B and Mifeprex that sort of thing is quickly resolved today as little more than a minor inconvenience with very little worry.

Soft rubber caps: In the early 1900s there were custom made metal cervical caps of silver or gold, but those were very expensive and rarely used by performers, unless paid for by a wealthy lover. The answer to failed condoms for most women who wanted to control their own fertility was to wear a latex cervical cap that was rugged enough that it wouldn’t fail immediately even if it was used with Vaseline or another petroleum product. That way the woman could check for leaks, apply spermicide and insert in privacy where no one could tamper with her cap. And, if an oil based lube was used the Prentif while beginning to experience damage wouldn’t leak during the encounter nor while providing at least eight hours of protection afterward while her partner’s sperm died in her belly. The soft rubber dome of the Prentif also provides sensation for a man of average size who wants to thrust into his partner’s cervix while providing her with a modest amount of thrust buffering by distributing the energy of his thrusts equally around the walls at the base of the cervix.

Wearing a cavity rim cap dry: Actually, a well fitting Prentif, just like a well fitting Oves cap can be worn ‘dry’, that is w/o spermicide in the dome. Of course that means that if it should dislodge there is no backup contraception, but with a well fitting Prentif or Oves the likelihood of it dislodging is very remote, unless worn during the woman’s period when it could fill with her menstrual flow and ‘float’ off her cervix. A FemCap, the only cap generally available in the U.S. at the moment, can not be safely worn w/o using spermicide in the dome and also in the channel on the outside of the cap at the base of the brim. After a few cycles, when I was sure of its excellent fit, I wore my Prentif dry and have done the same with my Oves caps (once I became confident of their strong suction on my cervix) for more than seven years, that’s ninety-three cycles, with no pregnancy scares. And for someone who is as sexually active as I am that is an amazing tribute to the tiny bit of .25mm thick transparent silicone rubber that keeps me well protected by sucking on my cervix. Occasionally a casual lover will want me to give him one of my Oves caps, but they are not souvenirs. I think they are such an intimate part of me that I burn my old Oves caps along with my dead pointe shoes so that nothing so intimate as my cervical protection is ever given away.

Ballerina’s with children: From the ascendancy of women in classical ballet through the 1940s when personal discipline and sacrifice for the art of classical ballet was expected and enforced – by ballet management – women did not have children and expect to continue as a ballet dancer. Stars as famous as the British ballerina Margot Fonteyn, after an unintended pregnancy and abortion, had her tubes tied and managed to hush it up to continue dancing. Today, ballet dancers, if they are good enough so they are not easily replaced by management, can have children and a career as well. Darcey Bussell (British Royal Ballet retired), Julie Kent (ABT) and Alessandra Ferri (ABT retired) to name a few all had their families in their 30s after their careers as ballet Principals were well established and returned to dancing afterward. Cyd Charisse the lovely long legged MGM ballet dancer was offered the female lead in An American in Paris if she would have an abortion. She refused to abort her son with her husband Tony Martin and Leslie Caron took her place beside Gene Kelly in the 1951 musical. We’ve come a long way baby! Sigh!