Sunday, July 12, 2020

Ballet Dancers Behaving Badly

My subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle allows me to receive electronic mail articles about famous headlines and reports for the past. Today's mail revisited an article from July 12, 1967 about Royal Ballet stars Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev:


Apparently they were busted "for disorderly conduct and being in a place where marijuana was kept." Whether they were in town because the Royal Ballet was performing is not mentioned.

Viewed from today's perspective, however, it is hard to overlook an amusing irony. It is, at the very least, a reminder than "being in a place where marijuana was kept" constituted a criminal offense in 1967, filled with unpleasant social implications. These days such grounds for offense would probably be absurd, subjected to ridicule by late-night talk-show hosts. On the other hand it is more likely that Forteyn would be pilloried for owning the white mink coat and sporting it in public! Times have changed, haven't they?

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