Ballerina Lynn dies on eve of turning 84

THE 84th birthday of one of the world’s mostcelebrated ballerinas, Lynn Seymour, was mentioned in yesterday’s newspapers. Sadly, I hear she had died the previous night.

‘It’s the most terrible shock,’ one of her friends tells me. ‘She had been due to have a celebratory lunch at Brasserie Zedel.’

Born in Canada, Seymour joined the Royal Ballet in 1957.

Notoriously, the first night of Romeo And Juliet, which had been conceived for her and

Christopher Gable by choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan, was danced by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. ‘I didn’t blame her,’ Seymour later said of Fonteyn. ‘She didn’t want me to be hurt.’

She was married three times, including to Colin Jones, known as the ‘George Orwell of photo-journalism’.

Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, says: ‘Lynn was an extraordinary force of the ballet world and the Royal Ballet will be forever indebted to her.’