Ballet de Rockefeller

One of the pleasantest ways in which a man of wealth can lose money is to back a ballet troupe. Distinguished losers at ballet in recent decades have included the Aga Khan and Sir Basil Zaharoff (original Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo), Cincinnati's yeast king, Julius Fleischmann (Universal Art, Inc.), Manhattan's rug widow, Lucia Chase (Ballet Theatre), Boston's department-store prince, Lincoln Kirstein (American Ballet). Last week another prospective loser cheerfully bet his chips: Chilean-born George de Cuevas, onetime Marques de Piedrablanca de Guana, who married the late John D. Rockefeller's granddaughter, Margaret Strong.

Balletomane de Cuevas' initial stack amounted to $250,000, for which he got a lease on a Broadway theater and a troupe of dancers known as the Ballet Institute. He has drawn up plans for eight new ballets, scheduled a Manhattan season to open "some time in September."

De Cuevas' entrance only complicated the No. 1 problem of U.S. ballet: an unprecedented scarcity of first-rate dancers. The world of U.S. ballet now contains scarcely enough top-rank talent to supply one really good ballet troupe, let alone three. Ballerinas with real dancing ability have been deserting ballet for Hollywood and Broadway at an alarming rate.*

But fiftyish Balletomane de Cuevas, who does an occasional pirouette and arabesque himself, is no man to be daunted by a little red ink. Five years ago he lost $300,000 backing the "Masterpieces of Art" show at the New York World's Fair. "That was a great loss," he admits cheerfully. "A great opportunity for educational possibilities, but nobody went."

* Some of the best-known: Tamara Toumanova (RKO's Days of Glory), Joan McCracken (Oklahoma!), Sono Osato (One Touch of Venus), Irina Baronova (Follow the Girls), Alicia Markova, signed for a Broadway debut in Billy Rose's Seven Lively Arts.

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