Pamela May (1917-2005).

There they are lined up across the stage--and in an iconic photograph--blond, brunette, and redhead, the original ballerinas in Frederick Ashton's 1946 masterpiece Symphonic Variations. The brunette was Fonteyn, and, yes, the redhead was Moira (The Red Shoes) Shearer, but the blond? She was Pamela May, two years older than her close friend Fonteyn.

Born in Trinidad, trained in London by Ninette de Valois, she was one of the pioneers of what was to become Britain's Royal Ballet, which she joined in 1934, three years after its founding. Although always more of an Odette than an Odile, she soon became a company ballerina, notable for a softly radiant Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, and partnership with the virtuoso Harold Turner as a particularly sparkling Swanilda in Coppelia. Apart from Symphonic Variations, her most significant created role, barefoot and rhapsodic, was in Ashton's 1940 Dante Sonata.

A dancer full of lambent charm and gentle phrasing, she retired from major dance roles after a series of injuries in 1952, but continued to teach, coach, and appear in mime parts until her retirement in 1982.