Anna Pavlova was born January 31, 1881 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her mother was a poor washerwoman and her father was unknown, although it is believed he died when she was age two. Born premature, she was a very delicate, frail child who spent her summers with her grandmother. It wasn't until she was eight years old, after seeing a performance of The Sleeping Beauty, did she know she wanted to become a dancer. At the age of ten, she was accepted to the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet School where she had to give her complete dedication to her ballet studies. Although she was slim, fragile and not to attractive, she was spotted by the famous ballet master Marius Petipa, who was taken with her agility and flexibility, schooling her in the fundamentals of classic Russian ballet. With added training by other famous dancers and choreographers at the Maryinsky Theater, she made her company debut September 1899. Anna soon became a favorite for the artistic and passionate beauty in her dancing. 1907 in Moscow, she began the first of her many tours and came to American in 1910, performing at the Metropolitan Opera House.
While most Americans had not seen her form of classic ballet, all agreed they loved her. In 1912, Anna purchased the Ivy House in England where she opened her own school of dance, and lived there for the remainder of her life. Her early tours were with the consent of the czar, but while traveling to London in 1914, Germany declared war on her homeland and her commitments to the Maryinsky Theater ended. In 1923 she toured Japan, China, South Africa and Australia and in 1926 she performed for the first time in New Zealand. She dedicated her tour in 1927-28 to Europe. Her last world tour was from 1928 to 1929 and her last appearance was in England in 1930.
Anna Pavlova was also featured in some silent movies, most noted for her role in The Immortal Swan, shot in 1924, but was not shown until after her death. In 15 years this remarkable woman traveled 300,000 miles and gave 4,000 performances, all without the use of air travel. Anna Pavlova died January 22, 1931 of pleurisy, performing up until her death. She was, and maybe still is, the world's most famous dancer, giving the world a new sense of the creative dance form known as classic ballet.
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