Ken Ludden

My Margot Ken Ludden

Margot Fonteyn's closest friends don't appear in Daneman's detailed biography. Lita Legarda (a doctor) gets a one line mention. Angie Novello (Margot's Washington Hostess), Theodora Christon (Margot's personal secretary) and Ken Ludden aren't mentioned at all. These were the people she trusted most, who kept her confidences and never spoke to the press. Everyone knew Margot differently. Bq, her mother, knew one Margot. Tito, her husband, knew another. Ludden, her circle's youngest by a large margin, knew yet another side of Margot: hence the title 'My Margot'. Ken shares that Margot--who taught him so much about ballet and life, and with whom he worked to plan ballet's future. Beyond Margot we learn about Ken's delightful relationship with Bq, a close friendship between a teenager and a woman of eighty. Ken also writes with unflinching honesty of the hostile relationship he had with Rudolf Nureyev, which developed over time into a grudging mutual respect and a shared grief when Margot died.