sonoosato

Wonderful photo, reminds me of my family.

Sono Osato was born in Omaha, Nebraska. She was the oldest of three children of a Japanese father (Shoji Osato, 1885–1955) and an Irish-French Canadian mother (Frances Fitzpatrick, 1897–1954). Her family moved to Chicago in 1925 in order to be closer to Frances' family, and Shoji opened a photography studio there. In 1927, when she was eight, Osato's mother took her and her sister to Europe for two years; while in Monte Carlo, they attended a performance of Cléopâtre by Sergei Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes company, which inspired Osato to start ballet classes when she returned to Chicago in late 1929. She studied with prominent dancers Berenice Holmes and Adolph Bolm. She performed with ballet companies Ballets Russe de Monte-Carlo and the American Ballet Theatre. As an actress, she starred alongside Frank Sinatra in the film The Kissing Bandit. More - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sono_Osato

Sono Osato, a Japanese-American dancer who toured the world with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, performed with the Ballet Theater in New York and then gained acclaim on Broadway in the World War II-era musicals “One Touch of Venus” and “On the Town,” died December 26, 2018 at her home in Manhattan. She was 99. – The New York Times

Haunting i love these old photos

At least according to Wikipedia, Sono Osato is still alive: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sono_Osato

pennylrichardsca (now at ipernity) she died last year, I think.

Oh--then I'll track down an obituary and fix the Wikipedia entry. Yale has a nice page about her: beinecke.library.yale.edu/cvvpw/gallery/osato1.html

Very nice - I'm sorry - I was thinking about the dancer Pearl Lang who died in 2009. You are correct - she is still alive.