Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief (her birth name) was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma, on January 24, 1925, to Alexander Joseph Tall Chief (1890–1959), a member of the Osage Nation, and his wife, Ruth (née Porter), of Scottish-Irish descent. Elizabeth Marie was known as "Betty Marie" to friends and family. Porter had met Alexander Tall Chief, a widower, while visiting her sister, who was his mother's housekeeper at the time.
Elizabeth Marie Tallchief (𐓏𐒰𐓐𐒿𐒷-𐓍𐓂͘𐓄𐒰 "Two-Standards"; Osage family name: Ki He Kah Stah Tsa, Osage script: 𐒼𐒱𐒹𐒻𐒼𐒰-𐓆𐓈𐒷𐓊𐒷; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American (Osage Nation) to hold the rank, and is said to have revolutionized ballet.
In 1930, a ballet teacher from Tulsa, Mrs. Sabin, visited Fairfax looking for students and took on Betty Marie and Marjorie as students. Looking back on Sabin many years later, Tallchief wrote, "She was a wretched instructor who never taught the basics, and it's a miracle I wasn't permanently harmed." In addition to the problems in her teaching technique, Sabin had put Tall Chief en pointe shortly after she joined the school (at 5 years old) while she was far too young to be able to dance en pointe without injury.
In 1933, the family moved to Los Angeles with the intent of getting the children into Hollywood musicals. The day they arrived in Los Angeles, her mother asked the clerk at a local drugstore if he knew any good dance teachers. The clerk recommended Ernest Belcher, father of dancer Marge Champion. "An anonymous man in an unfamiliar town decided our fate with those few words," Tall Chief later recalled. California moved Tall Chief back to the proper grade for her age but put her in an Opportunity Class for advanced learners. "Opportunity Class or not, I was still way ahead," she recalled. "With nothing to do, I often wandered around the schoolyard by myself." At this time Tall Chief was removed from pointe, probably saving her from major injury.
At age 12, Tallchief began to work with Bronislava Nijinska, a renowned choreographer who had recently opened her own studio in Los Angeles, and David Lichine, a choreographer and former dancer. Nijinska "was a personification of what ballet was all about," Tallchief recalled. "I looked at her, and I knew this was what I wanted to do." Nijinska imparted a strong sense of discipline and the belief that being a ballerina was a full-time task. "We didn't concentrate only for an hour and a half a day," Tallchief recalled. "We lived it." It was under Nijinska that Tallchief decided ballet was what she wanted to devote her life to. "Before Nijinska, I liked ballet but believed that I was destined to become a concert pianist," she recalled. "Now my goal was different." Nijinska saw Tallchief was serious and began devoting great attention to her.
Krassovska feuded with management regularly, raising the possibility of a sudden promotion for Tallchief. She nearly quit the company late in 1942 and Tallchief was told she would go on in her place. Krassovska was persuaded to return, but the incident made it clear to Tallchief she needed to be ready to perform Krassovska's technically difficult role on short notice – something for which she was not yet ready. In the spring of 1943, Krassovska argued with Denham and left the company. "Unprepared, I was numb with terror," Tallchief recalled. When the company returned to New York, Tallchief received positive reviews. The New York Times dance critic John Martin wrote, "Tallchief gave a stunning account of herself in Nijinkska's Chopin Concerto ... She has an easy brilliance that smacks of authority rather than bravura," and predicted she would be a big star in the near future. Glory, however, was short lived as Tallchief returned to the corps when the staging of Chopin Concerto was complete.
Tallchief graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1942. She had given up piano and wanted to go to college, but her father was against it. "I've paid for your lessons all your life," he said. "Now it's time for you to find a job." She won a bit part in Presenting Lily Mars, an MGM musical with Judy Garland. Dancing in the movie was "not gratifying" and Tallchief decided against making a career of it. That summer, family friend Tatiana Riabouchinska asked if Tallchief would like to go to New York. With Riabouchinska chaperoning, she set off for the big city at age 17 in 1942.
At age 17, she moved to New York City in search of a spot with a major ballet company, and, at the urging of others, took the name Maria Tallchief. She spent the next five years with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she met choreographer George Balanchine. When Balanchine co-founded what would become the New York City Ballet in 1946, Tallchief became the company's first star.
One night on tour in 1945, Tallchief was doing her barre when Balanchine remarked, "If only you would learn to do battement tendu properly you wouldn't have to learn anything else." It was his way of saying she needed to start all over – battement tendu is the most basic ballet exercise there is. "I wanted to die," she recalled. "But I had seen the difference between Mary Ellen's [who was a pupil of Balanchine] dancing and mine. I knew he was right." Under the tutelage of Balanchine, Tallchief lost ten pounds and elongated her legs and neck. She learned how to hold her chest high, keep her back straight, and keep her feet arched. "My body seemed to be going through a metamorphosis," she recalled. Tallchief relearned the basic exercises the way Balanchine wanted and transformed her greatest weakness–turnout–into a strength. Danilova devoted a lot of her time to instructing Tallchief in the ballerina's art, helping her transform from a teenage girl into a young woman.
Also in 1946, Balanchine joined with arts patron Lincoln Kirstein to establish the Ballet Society, a direct forerunner to the New York City Ballet. Tallchief had six months remaining on her contract with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, so stayed with the company until 1947. When her contract expired, she joined Balanchine who was in France as guest choreographer at the Paris Opera Ballet. He had been called upon to "save" the famous troupe, but not everyone appreciated his presence. A group of supporters of Serge Lifar, who was on leave while accusations of aiding the Nazis during World War II were investigated, led a vocal campaign to get rid of Balanchine. Spectateur and Les Arts joined in, publishing articles attacking Balanchine personally. He ignored the company's hierarchy, further angering some dancers.
Shortly before Ballet Imperial was to open, Balanchine informed Tallchief that she would be second lead behind Moylan. "I nearly fainted," she recalled. "I couldn't get over it." As the season wore on, Balanchine grew fond of her both professionally – The Washington Post called Tallchief his "crucial artistic inspiration" – and personally. Tallchief was ignorant of the personal attraction for a long time and their relationship remained mostly on a professional level. Slowly they became friends; then one day, Balanchine asked Tallchief to marry him, much to her surprise. After some thought, she agreed and the couple wed on August 16, 1946.
Tallchief and Balanchine were married on August 16, 1946, when she was 21 years old and he was 42. Her parents continued to oppose the marriage and did not attend the ceremony. The couple did not have a traditional honeymoon: "For both of us, work was more important."
When the couple returned to the States, Tallchief quickly became one of the first stars, and first prima ballerina, of the New York City Ballet, which opened in October 1948. Balanchine "revolutionized ballet" by creating roles that demanded athleticism, speed, and aggressive dancing like nothing before. Tallchief was well suited for Balanchine's vision. "I always thought Balanchine was more of a musician even than a choreographer, and perhaps that's why he and I connected," Tallchief recalled. He created many roles specifically for Tallchief, including the lead of "The Firebird" in 1949. Of her "Firebird" debut, Kirstein wrote "Maria Tallchief made an electrifying appearance, emerging as the nearest approximation to a prima ballerina that we had yet enjoyed." The role created a sensation and launched her to the top of the ballet world, granting her the prima ballerina title. Noting the great technical difficulty of the role, The New York Times critic John Martin wrote that Tallchief was asked "to do everything except spin on her head, and she does it with complete and incomparable brilliance."
According to Tallchief, "Passion and romance didn't play a big part in our married life. We saved our emotions for the classroom." Nonetheless, she described Balanchine as "a warm, affectionate, loving husband." Their marriage was annulled in 1952, when both parties were attracted to other people.
In 1952, Tallchief married Elmourza Natirboff, a pilot for a private charter airline. The couple divorced two years later. In 1955, she met Chicago businessman Henry D. ("Buzz") Paschen Jr. "He was very happy, outgoing, and knew nothing about ballet —very refreshing," she recalled. The couple married the following June and honeymooned with a ballet tour of Europe. With Paschen, Tallchief had her only child, Elise Maria Paschen (born 1959), who became an award-winning poet and executive director of the Poetry Society of America. With this marriage, Tallchief also gained a stepdaughter, Margaret Wright. The couple remained together, even through Paschen's brief imprisonment for tax evasion, until his death, in 2004.
In Oklahoma, Tallchief was honored by the governor for both her ballet achievements and her pride in her American Indian heritage. The Legislature declared June 29, 1953, as "Maria Tallchief Day." She stands among four other Indian ballerinas depicted in "Flight of Spirit," a mural in the Oklahoma Capitol building. Tallchief is a subject of one of the life-size bronze statues titled The Five Moons, located at the Tulsa Historical Society. Osage Nation honored her with the title "Princess Wa-Xthe-Thomba" (Osage: 𐓏𐓘𐓸𐓧𐓟-𐓵𐓪͘𐓬𐓘, romanized: Wahle-ðǫpa, "Woman of Two Worlds" or "Two Standards"). In 1996, Tallchief received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievements. Her Kennedy Center biography states that Tallchief was "both the inspiration and the living expression of the best [the United States] has given the world. Her individualism and her genius came together to create one of the most vital and beautiful chapters in the history of American dance."
Tallchief remained with the New York City Ballet until February 1960, but also took time off to work with other companies. She made guest appearances with the Chicago Opera Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the Hamburg Ballet, among others. Working for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1954–55, she was paid $2,000 a week, reportedly the highest salary ever paid to a dancer at the time. In 1958, she created the lead in Balanchine's Gounod Symphony before taking a leave of absence to have her first child.
Tallchief's popularity helped the fledgeling dance company grow and she was asked to perform as many as eight times a week. In 1954, Tallchief was given the role of Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine's newly reworked version of The Nutcracker, then an obscure ballet. Her performance of the role helped transform the work into an annual Christmas classic, and the industry's most reliable box-office draw. Critic Walter Terry remarked "Maria Tallchief, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being. Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it."
Tallchief's dancing was not confined to the stage. She appeared on multiple TV shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show. She portrayed Anna Pavlova in the 1952 movie musical Million Dollar Mermaid. In 1962, Tallchief was Rudolf Nureyev's partner of choice for his American debut which was broadcast on national television. Her final performance in America was on television's "Bell Telephone Hour" in 1966.
She traveled the world, becoming the first American to perform in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. She made regular appearances on American TV before she retired in 1966. After retiring from dance, Tallchief was active in promoting ballet in Chicago. She served as director of ballet for the Lyric Opera of Chicago for most of the 1970s and debuted the Chicago City Ballet in 1981.
As a child, Ruth Porter had dreamed about becoming a performer, but her family could not afford dance or music lessons. She was determined that her daughters would not suffer the same fate. Betty Marie was enrolled in summer ballet classes in Colorado Springs at age 3. She and other family members performed at rodeos and other local events. Tall Chief studied piano and contemplated becoming a concert pianist.
After retiring from dancing, Tallchief moved to Chicago, where husband Buzz Paschen resided. She served as director of ballet for the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1973 to 1979. In 1974, she founded Lyric Opera's ballet school, where she taught the Balanchine technique. Explaining her teaching philosophy she wrote "New ideas are essential, but we must retain respect for the art of ballet–and that means the artist too–or else it is no longer an art form."
With her sister Marjorie, Tallchief founded the Chicago City Ballet in 1981. She served as co-artistic director until its demise in 1987. Despite the company failing, the Chicago Tribune called her "a force in the history of Chicago dance," and said she arguably increased the popularity of dance in the city.
Tallchief was featured in the documentary film Dancing for Mr. B in 1989. From 1990 until her death, she was artistic adviser to Von Heidecke's Chicago Festival Ballet.
Tallchief was honored by the people of Oklahoma with multiple statues and an honorific day. She was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame and received a National Medal of Arts. In 1996, Tallchief received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievements and is presently being depicted on the 2023 American Women quarters series. Her life has been the subject of multiple documentaries and biographies.
Tallchief has been the subject of multiple biographies. Her autobiography, Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina, was co-written with Larry Kaplan and released in 1997.
Tallchief is an inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame, and was twice named "Woman of the Year" by the Washington Press Club. She twice was on Dance Magazine's annual award list. The magazine explained the 1960 recognition: "[Tallchief is a] star with a truly American flavor, whose qualities of elegance, brilliance, and modesty ... [made] a distinguished contribution to the recent cultural mission of American Ballet Theatre in Europe and Russia." In 1999, Tallchief was awarded the American National Medal of Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts; in 2011, she received the Chicago History Museum's Making History Award for Distinction in the Performing Arts.
In 2006, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented a special tribute to Maria Tallchief titled "A Tribute to Ballet Great Maria Tallchief," during which Tallchief officially named Kenneth von Heidecke as her protégé.
Sandy and Yasu Osawa of Upstream Productions in Seattle, Washington, made a documentary titled Maria Tallchief in November 2007 that aired on PBS between 2007 and 2010.
In December 2012, Tallchief broke her hip. She died on April 11, 2013, from complications stemming from the injury.
In 2018, Tallchief became one of the inductees in the first induction ceremony held by the National Native American Hall of Fame.
On November 13, 2020, a Google Doodle was made in honor of her.