S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance World

by Sol Hurok

To my wife also goes my grateful thanks for restraining me from undertakings doomed in advance to failure, as well as for encouraging me in my determination to venture into pastures new and untried.

At the head of that staff of loyal associates which carries on the multifarious details of the organization on which depends the fulfillment of much of what has been recited in these pages, is one to whom my deepest thanks are due. She is that faithful and indispensable companion of failures and successes, Mae Frohman.

She is known intimately to all in this world of music and dance. Without her aid I could not have been what I am today. It is impossible for me to give the reader any real idea of the sacrifices she has made for the success of the enterprises this book records: the sleepless nights and days; the readiness, at an instant’s notice, to depart for any part of the world to “trouble-shoot,” to make arrangements, to settle disputes, to keep the wheels in motion when matters have come to a dead center.

The devoted staff I have mentioned, and on whom I rely much more than they realize, receives, as is its due, my deep gratitude and appreciation. I cannot fail to thank my daughter Ruth for her understanding, her sympathy, her spiritual support. With all the changes in her personal life and with her own problems, there has never been a word of complaint. Never has she added her hardships to mine. It has been her invariable custom to present her happiest side to me: to comfort, to understand. In her and my two lovely grandchildren, I find a comfort not awarded every traveller through this tortuous vale, and I want to extend my sincere gratitude to her.

It would not be possible for any one to have attained these successes without the very great help of others. In rendering my gratitude to my staff, I must point out that this applies not only to those who are a part of my organization as these lines are written, but to those who have been associated with me in the past, in the long, upward struggle. We are still friends, and my gratitude to them and my admiration for them is unbounded.

During the many years covered in this account, my old friend and colleague, Marks Levine, and I have shared one roof businesswise, and one world spiritually and artistically. Without his warm friendship, his subtle understanding, his wholehearted cooperation, and his rare sense of humor, together with the help of his colleagues, and that of O. O. Bottorf and his colleagues, many of the successes of a lifetime might not have been accomplished.

At this point in my life, I look with amazement at the record of an immigrant lad from Pogar, arriving here practically penniless, and ask myself: where in the world could this have happened save here? My profoundest thanks go to this adopted country which has done so much for me. Daily I breathe the prayer: “God bless this country!”

In all that has been done and accomplished, and with special reference to all of these wide-flung ballet tours, none of it could have been done singlehanded. In nearly every country and in nearly every important city there is a person who is materially responsible for the success of the local engagement. Local engagements cumulatively make or break a tour.

This person is the local manager: that local resident who is often the cultural mentor of the community of which he is an important member. It is he who makes it possible for the members of his community to hear the leading concert artists and musical organizations and to see and enjoy ballet at its best. In these days of increasing encroachment on the part of mechanical, push-button entertainment, it is the local manager to whom the public must look for the preservation of the “live” culture: the singer, the instrumentalist, the actor, the dancer, the painter, the orchestra.

In the early days of my managerial activities, when I did not have an office of my own, merely desk space in the corner of a room in the Chandler Building, in West Forty-Second Street, I shall never forget the “daddy” of all the local managers, the late L. H. Behymer, of Los Angeles, who traveled three thousand miles just to see what sort of creature it was, this youngster who was bringing music to the masses at the old New York Hippodrome. A life-long bond was formed between us, and “Bee” and his hard-working wife, throughout their long and honorable careers as purveyors of the finest in musical and dance art to the Southwest, remained my loyal and devoted friends.