Ruvenoff was born in Kiev, Ukraine and started as a dancer at the age of seven at the Imperial Ballet in Odessa, Ukraine and then moved on to Marinsky Ballet of St. Petersberg, (later rechristened by revolutionaries as the Leningrad Kirov Ballet).
His timing was impeccable as Czar Alexander had just reversed his ban on Jews dancing in such high-profile ballets.
"To my knowledge I was the first pupil of Jewish extraction to be admitted into the school. In those days Russia was very anti-Semitic but they let me me in because my family had distinguished itself in military service," Ruvenoff said in a 1961 interview.
Ruvenoff rubbed shoulders with Russian royals and their entourage, including Rasputin. "The films and novels depict Rasputin as a mad monk with unruly hair who dressed and behaved like a peasant. Rasputin came to the ballet often and I never knew him as anything but a well-mannered gentleman who dressed impeccably and conducted himself like a nobleman," said Ruvenoff.
Ruvenoff rose to glory with a dancing debut in front of 50,000 in St. Petersburg in 1918.
But his association with the royal family suddenly worked against him after the Russian Revolution and he was sent to a work camp in Siberia where he toiled for about three years.
Ruvenoff disliked discussing his time in Siberia but he apparently escaped in a rowboat in the Pacific Ocean in November 1920. It sunk and a Japanese ship saved him.
Ruvenoff was temporarily mute after his dramatic near-drowning and unable to communicate with the Japanese sailors, who concluded that he was Canadian and dropped him off in the Yukon, or Vancouver or to the United States, depending on the various versions.
Ruvenoff was already about 50 years old when he started his first dance school in Montreal in 1924.
"It was very successful and I had many socially prominent pupils," he would report. Ruvenoff's first school was at 277 Ontario W., he then moved it to 905 St. Catherine and then opened a second school at 5711 Park, the Rialto Theatre in 1929.
Ruvenoff blew people away with his excellence.
Broadway choreography legend Gower Champion, who studied under Ruvenoff in Montreal, described him as "the greatest dance teacher of all time."
Ruvenoff was "eccentric, excessively demanding, intolerant of those who displeased him," according to student Molly Bacal. "He possessed the all-important qualities of a dancing master: integrity and a love of the dance. The crying four-and-five-year-olds in his class felt the sincerity of his relentless drive and that his personal being was dominated by his sense of aesthetics and need to transmit at the highest level. The same children were also aware of his affection."
Ruvenoff increased his salary when the Allen family of Toronto, who owned 23 Canadian theatres, hired him as a producer. Ruvenoff earned $250,000 a year between dance school and production work, the equivalent of about $4 million today.
Ruvenoff traveled the world and tossed extravagant parties for theatre and media personalities and anybody else who wanted to show up.
In day days when champagne flowed freely at $3.50 a bottle, rich folks like Ruvenoff were happy to share and show off their good fortunes. "Often Ezzak Ruvenoff was the man laying it on," said his friend Colin Gravenor.
Misfortune dared once again to poke its miserable head back into Ruvenoff's life on 14 May 1935 at his annual student recital at the 2,300-seat Imperial Theatre on Bleury.
The girls were backstage when one stepped near an electric heater, which had no protective grille. It had been placed in the room because the day was damp and cool. An eight-year-old dancer's tutu caught fire when it came into contact with the heating element.
The girl ran towards other girls and others soon were engulfed in fire. Theatre manager Ernest Ouimet leaped onto the girls to extinguish the blaze, suffering serious burns in the process.
Several girls were rushed to hospital. The show went on with the audience none-the-wiser. One newspaper reported on the event without remarking on the backstage tragedy, as written up in a separate article on page one.
Five days after being admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital Hilda Charles, aged seven, was pronounced dead.
Others reported injured were Betty Williams, 12 of St Vincent de Paul, Joseline Rivet, 15, of 3782 Delorimier Ave. and Marion Huestis, seven, of 37 Stratford in Hampstead, all of whom were described as in serious condition.
A coroners jury charged dancer Roger Darencourt with manslaughter for placing the heater in the room but a judge tossed the case out. Darencourt went on to a successful career in dance.
The disaster caused Ruvenoff to collapse into mental shock and spend two years recovering in the psych ward of the Royal Victoria Hospital.
"I haven't gotten over it. I gave up my schools I would never teach classes again," Ruvenoff told a reporter 26 years later.
Ruvenoff said that two girls died in the fire and several were permanently disfigured but newspaper reports only mention the one death.
Not all was dark and gloomy, as 1946 social notes reported Ruvenoff dancing the polka and mazurka on his birthday, while the next year he celebrated at the Russian-themed Samovar bar on Peel along with much-loved MC Carol Grauer.
Ruvenoff does not appear to have had any children and it's unknown whether he was heterosexual or other.
One report states that Ruvenoff returned to teaching in around 1949 and kept at it for about another decade before his health faltered at the age of 87.
Ruvenoff, who is said to have burned through one million dollars in a his big-earning years in the 1920s and 1930s, was living very different circumstances while aged in his mid-80s, when he lived in a one-room apartment on Stanley Street, surviving on a $55-per-month old age pension and money from friends.
"I walk down the street and some people still point at me and say, 'that's Ruvenoff. He must be worth a fortune. He dresses like a millionaire He must have load of money stacked away.' I do nothing to dispel the illusion," he said in 1961.
Ezak Ruvenoff died at the age of 96 on Sunday 7 June 1970. He was the last surviving member of the Imperial Russian Ballet, outliving such legends as Pavlova, Karsavina, Fokine and Diaghilev.
I’d never heard of Ruvenoff before…a diligent and dedicated man who survived Siberia and went on fame and fortune…an interesting perspective and a good article..thank you..
ReplyDeleteHe was a close family friend and he gave me Pavlova's bronzed ballet shoes.
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