Natacha Rambova - Ballet Career

Ballet Career

Rambova was gifted at ballet, and trained with Rosita Mauri at the Paris Opéra during the summers. She traveled to London frequently to watch other performers including Pavlova, Nijinsky, and Theodore Kosloff. Right before World War I broke out, Rambova returned to San Francisco where she clashed with her mother once again and insisted she would pursue ballet as a career. Her family had trained her in ballet as a social grace and were appalled at the thought of it becoming a career. Aunt Teresa intervened, offering to move with Rambova to New York where she could study under Kosloff. Rambova, now 17, changed her name to Natacha Rambova at this time. At 5'8" she was too tall to be a classical ballerina, but Kosloff continually gave her leading parts. She performed with him in his Imperial Russian Ballet Company.

Around this time Rambova fell for the 32 year old Kosloff (who had a wife and an invalid daughter in Europe) and the pair began a tumultuous love affair. Muzzie was outraged when she found out, and brought charges of statutory rape and kidnapping against Kosloff hoping to have him deported. Rambova fled New York and hid in Canada, and later England, to hide from her mother. While in England she posed as a governess to Kosloff's wife and child. Muzzie, wanting to bring her daughter home, relented by dropping the charges. She allowed Rambova to keep performing with the company and promised to underwrite the costumes.