Firebird

I sadly neglected to add this woman to my list of people who would make a good Barbie, but I did whisper to my dad, long, long ago, "Wouldn't it be great if Mattel did a Barbie that looked like Maria Tallchief?"  That was 2004, approximately.  It's been twenty years exactly, but Big Brother apparently was listening.  Look who just got released.

That, folks, is Maria Tallchief.  And she's friggin' beautiful.  I've GOTTA have this one!

For the uninitiated, Maria Tallchief was a prima ballerina.  She was half Osage native and half Scots-Irish, and was the first person of native decent to achieve the title of prima ballerina.  She began dancing professionally in 1942 and retired in 1966, which is a nice stretch of time for a ballet dancer.  She worked with some huge names in ballet, folks like Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine (she was married to the latter for awhile).  She helped found what eventually became the New York City Ballet and became their first prima.  She also did her share of work in the corps (the group of ballerinas that backs the prima up), but...well, you can't have a ballet without the corps!  The doll pictured is how Ms. Tallchief appeared in The Firebird.

Blick, Igor Stravinsky wrote the music for The Firebird.  I'm not a big fan of his work.  Anyway, for those of y'all that are five-seven and above, Maria was kinda tall for a prima...or at least, she was when compared to Anna Pavlova and Margot Fonteyn, two other greats in the ballet world.  Anna was rumored to be about five feet (couldn't find an exact height), Margot was five feet, four inches, and Maria was five feet, nine inches.  A hair taller than I am, in other words (I'm five-eight).  Oh yes, and I don't want to leave out Misty Copeland, another groundbreaking ballerina; she is five feet, two inches.  Misty got her own Barbie doll years ago...and she's the Firebird.  Why I never tracked this doll down is beyond me, because she too is drop-dead gorgeous.

I can, however, explain why the Maria Tallchief doll is important to me.  I've always loved ballet, even if I can't dance it, and one day in my teens Daddy and I were discussing its ups and downs.  I was and still am fond of Margot Fonteyn, and Maria was Daddy's favorite.  I think Daddy may have liked her because she reminded him of Mama; his favorite actresses were raven-haired and dark-eyed, just like Mama was in her youth.  Guess what?  Maria Tallchief also had dark hair and dark eyes.  Anyway, Barbie dolls as celebrities were nothing new in 2004, and one day during a bull session I mentioned my desire to see Maria as a Barbie.  Daddy agreed that she'd make a good one, but we were both doubtful that it would ever happen.  Ha!  Little did we know!

Maria died in 2013, but as with all the greats, she left quite a legacy, one far bigger than I could relate in a fifteen-minute blog post.  Her daughter is pleased as punch to see her mama immortalized as a Barbie, and if y'all couldn't tell, so am I.  I don't know when, but this flaming beauty will find her way into my collection somehow...and depending on prices, so will Misty Copeland.

Love,
RagingMoon1987