Madeleine Parker – sighs and whispers
It was the sociable and wealthy Gosse who helped Parker make arrangements for her mother, Norma, to sail to Australia so that – as she told Haskell – “we need no longer be separated”. Mrs Parker, who lived at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, made arrangements to travel to Montreal to board the freighter, Port Alma.
On October 23, Parker appeared as Frivolity in Les Presages. “She danced it well”, wrote Haskell, “but the effort was apparent, and there was nothing to suggest frivolity. At times she seemed to be tottering, and when she missed an important cue I rushed round to the wings”.
She told him “I will be all right. I must go on; but my head is burning, and I can scarcely breathe. I have such a terrible sore throat”.
Haskell found her feverish and barely able to stand. Early the next morning he visited Parker, finding her struggling to talk and “as pale as the white frangipani her friends had sent to decorate the room”. She told him that a doctor had called on her, and instructed her to rest for a few days. Parker believed that she would be able to travel to Melbourne with the company. Haskell wrote that he met the doctor “in the corridor” presumably the hotel corridor and was asked if he was Parker’s closest friend. “I suppose so”, he replied, “at any rate as close as any”.
Later at the doctor’s rooms, Haskell discovered the terrible news. A blood test showed that she probably had leukaemia. The doctor insisted that this news must not leak out “or it may easily reach and alarm her. I believe she has about six weeks to live”. Discovering that her mother was on board a ship to Australia, he told Haskell that she might arrive in time to see her daughter alive.
On October 25, Parker was admitted to Ru Rua Private Hospital where her large room overlooked a garden. With his mind fixed on the company’s planned departure in three days to Melbourne, Haskell decided “I would willingly have remained behind, but a man cannot be much comfort to a girl so desperately ill”. Instead, he told Mrs Russell the whole story. She decided to stay behind to care for Parker, leaving her then 15-year-old daughter, Lelia, to travel with the company to Melbourne.
In Melbourne, Haskell immersed himself in the city, finding the social life a distraction and dealing with ongoing dramas over the management of the tour. He received what he called guarded little notes from the doctor and long pathetic letters from Mrs Russell. Not surprisingly, news of Parker’s illness had leaked to the press, after all it’s hard to believe that most of the company did not know, if not from Haskell’s circle, then from the very young Lelia who could not be expected to keep the news to herself when her mother was caring for Parker in Adelaide.
By November 9, the news of Parker’s illness was in the press. Under the headline “Ballet Dancer Reported To Have Rare Disease” the Adelaide paper, The Advertiser, reported that “little change is reported in the condition of Miss Mira Dimina of the Russian ballet, who has been in an Adelaide private hospital for two weeks since she developed a throat and mouth infection… Miss Dimina is suffering from a rare disease, leuchaemia which causes multiplication of the white blood corpuscles”.
On November 17, the dancer, Betty Scorer wrote to her mother in England: “There is said to be no hope of Dimina’s recovery, she has pernicious anaemia and it’s only a question of weeks, maybe days. She has the blood transfusions, but all the blood turns white within 48 hours, so it is no use. Isn’t it frightful….”
Haskell, meanwhile, was asked by the Adelaide press to send a photo of Parker “just in case”. On November 22, Haskell was staying with the artist and ballet lover, Daryl Lindsay at his property Mulberry Hill, Baxter, about 50 kilometres from the centre of Melbourne when he received a call from Jacques Lidji, one of the ballet’s two company managers. He asked him to return to Melbourne immediately. Parker had died at 10.30am. Lindsay drove him to Melbourne and from there, Haskell travelled by train that evening to Adelaide along with the other managers, Alexander Philipoff and Daphne Deane and the dancer, Natasha Branitzka.
Haskell saw Parker’s body, surrounded by flowers and “sleeping just as she was when I peeped into her cabin at rehearsal time. Afterwards Pete [Mrs Russell] told me that she had suffered comparatively little and had never known how desperately ill she was. Up to the end, she talked of her dancing and asked to be reassured that she would get her roles back again. The promise of Le Spectre de la Rose gave her infinite pleasure. Before she lapsed into her final sleep she made dancing movements the whole night long. Her courage and fine spirits had endeared her to everyone; the doctor and nurses are mourning her like friends”.
2 Comments
I recently read your ‘Features’ section in DanceLines.com, entitled Madeleine Parker – Sighs and Whispers, which I really enjoyed. I believe this biography of Madeleine Parker (Mira Dimina) is very well composed, and a fine on-line resource. I would like to mention that Miss Parker, as a young woman, also posed as a sculptor’s model for the very talented Harriet Whitney Frishmuth. Miss Frishmuth’s sculpture is held in the highest regard, and consequently is extremely valuable. Her works are admired for their incredible detail, and also how well they evoke many subtle displays of the human spirit. Miss Frishmuth operated a studio in New York (1910-1937) and later in Philadelphia, and Norwalk, Connecticut, and for a number of years maintained a summer home in Lake Pleasant, New York. She actively marketed her works until her death in 1980. She was a successful woman-of-business in an era when that would have been very rare. Miss Frishmuth’s well-known works would have been commissioned as garden statues and fountains, and she also produced sculpture for cemetery memorials and automobile hood ornaments. Miss Frishmuth frequently employed dancers as her models, which was the case with Madeleine Parker, who modeled for the fountain sculptures; ‘Call of the Sea,’ and later for ‘Playdays.’ Both these sculptures are praised for the way the artist expresses in bronze the models youthful exuberance. I feel very fortunate that Miss Frishmuth turned over all her papers, and part of her personal collection to Syracuse University. I have been able to review this material on several occasions, and it was there that I happened upon her description of the sculpture the ‘Call of the Sea’ where she mentions, “the idea of the whole thing was a feeling of calling, like the ocean always has called to me.” Miss Frishmuth goes on to describe Madeleine Parker as “a charming little girl, a ballet dancer, a student,” and also her unfortunate demise in Adelaide from a dreaded disease. There was a book published in 2006 titled: Captured Motion The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth A Catalogue of Works by Janis Conner, Leah Rosenblatt Lehmbeck, Theyer Tolles and Frank Hohmann. This is a wonderful publication, which the authors state that they felt obligated to write and illustrate due to the increase in interest in the work of Miss Frishmuth, and the subsequent enormous leap in value. This book also documents that Madeleine Parker was the model for the ‘Call of the Sea’ and ‘Playdays.’ Thank you.
Hi Bill, this is a fascinating addition to what’s known of Madeleine Parker’s life. Thank you so much for letting me know. I have found an image of Playdays which I’m going to add to dancelines with more information on Harriet Frishmuth’s dance sculptures.