{{Short description|English ballet dancer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} thumb|Michael Somes and Margot Fonteyn, Theatre Arts Magazine September 1957
'''Michael George Somes''' CBE (28 September 1917{{spaced ndash}}18 November 1994), was an English ballet dancer. He was a principal dancer of The Royal Ballet, London, and the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn.
==Early years== Somes was born in Horsley, Gloucestershire, England, the son of Edwin Joseph Somes (1882–1973), a professional musician, and Ethel M. M. Pridham (1889–1972), a schoolmistress. He had an elder brother, Laurence Joseph Somes (1913–1987).<ref>[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/158142730/family/familyview?cfpid=362075448393 Robin Somes, private genealogical research.]</ref>
==Career== In 1934, he was awarded the first scholarship given to a male by the Royal Ballet (then known as the Vic-Wells Ballet). In 1938, he and Fonteyn created the principal rôles in the Frederick Ashton/Constant Lambert ballet ''Horoscope'', after which he was described as "potentially the finest British male dancer of the half century".<ref>[http://www.ballet.co.uk/may98/year_1938.htm Ballet magazine, 1938] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080917002901/http://www.ballet.co.uk/may98/year_1938.htm |date=17 September 2008 }}</ref> He originated rôles in 24 ballets choreographed for the company by Ashton, and was the lead male dancer for the company from 1951 until the arrival of Rudolf Nureyev in 1962. From then on, Somes appeared in character rôles, most notably as Lord Capulet in ''Romeo and Juliet''. Somes was assistant director of the company under Ashton from 1963 to 1970.<ref name=":0">[https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001180/19941215/057/0011 The Stage, December 15th 1994, p. 11]</ref>
Somes appeared on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' in 1954, and in television versions of ''Swan Lake'' (1954), ''The Sleeping Beauty'' (1955) and ''The Nutcracker'' (1958), as well as a film version of Prokofiev's ''Romeo and Juliet'' (1966). All three productions starred Margot Fonteyn.{{citation needed|date= January 2022}}
In 1959, Somes was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).<ref name=":0" />
==Personal life== In 1954, Somes married the ballet dancer Deirdre Annette Dixon (1934–1959), a junior soloist for the Royal Ballet. Dixon died in a London hospital on May 28, 1959, aged 25, from a cerebral abscess and meningitis,<ref>Death certificate, issued May 29th 1959.</ref> although her obituary in The Stage states that her death was from the effects of a car accident two years previously.<ref>[https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001180/19590604/137/0012 Obituary – Deirdre Dixon, The Stage, Thursday June 4th 1959]</ref> Somes then married fellow ballet dancer Dame Antoinette Sibley in 1964; they divorced in 1973.<ref name=":1">[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/11/27/british-dancer-michael-somes-dies/66e30c89-781a-4dd6-9d13-c3e4a5a0f0c1/ "British Dancer Michael Somes Dies" – Washington Post, November 27th 1994]</ref> He later married ballet dancer Wendy Ellis. He died of a brain tumour in London in 1994.<ref name=":1" />
Somes was a distant relative (1st cousin 3 times removed) of Joseph Somes, (1787–1845), British shipowner, Conservative politician and Governor of the New Zealand Company.<ref name=":2">[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/158142730/family/familyview?cfpid=362075447875 Robin Somes, private genealogical research]</ref> He was also related to the latter's namesake Joseph Somes (1819–1871), Conservative M.P. for Kingston upon Hull from 1859 to 1865.<ref name=":2" />
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1083/is_n2_v69/ai_16686051 Dance magazine obituary, February 1995] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120205221647/http://www.ballet.co.uk/old/legend_js_michael_somes.htm Biography at Ballet.co.uk, 30 September 1997] *{{IMDb name|0811621}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Somes, Michael}} Category:1917 births Category:1994 deaths Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Deaths from brain cancer in England Category:English male ballet dancers Category:Principal dancers of The Royal Ballet Category:Entertainers from Gloucestershire