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October 25, 1998 

 

Christopher Gable, dancer and director, Northern Ballet Theatre, died of cancer this weekend. At the time of his death he was director of Northern Ballet Theatre, but he was probably better known to ballet lovers as the very promising young star of the Royal Ballet in the mid-1960s who created several roles in ballets by Ashton and Macmillan before leaving ballet to pursue a career in acting.

Gable was born in London in 1940 and studied at the Royal Ballet School, joining the touring section of the Royal Ballet in 1957, becoming first a soloist (1959), then principal (1961).  He joined the Covent Garden Royal ballet in 1963, and resigned in 1967.  He was immensely popular and was the Royal's "modern" dancer, an adorable British beach boy. He created roles in The Invitation and Images of Love (Macmillan) and The Two Pigeons (Ashton); the two photographs on this page, taken from Keith Money's superb 1964 book, The Art of the Royal Ballet, are of Lynn Seymour and Gable rehearsing The Two Pigeons). The role of Romeo in Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet was created for Gable, although, as most know, Rudolf Nureyev danced the premiere.

I never saw Gable dance, and the photographs nearly always show him in acting or partnering roles rather than dancing ones. He was said to be an immensely appealing performer, and some British writers in the mid-60s criticized the Royal's director (then Frederick Ashton) for favoring virtuosity (i.e., Nureyev) over expression.

Gable was a very theatrical artistic director, building a repertory of highly dramatic works, and giving Northern Ballet Theatre a distinctive, and very popular, profile.  But it is as the Royal's Romantic Golden Boy that he will be most remembered: Romeo, Daphnis, Colas, Amintas, the young man in The Invitation and most of all, the young, restless, yet loving and lovable Artist in The Two Pigeons.