LÉONID MASSINE, Russian dancer, born (d: 1979) As a young dancer, Massine is said to have resembled the ripening boys whom Baron von Gloeden photographed at Taormina. As Nijinksy’s successor, both in Diaghilev’s bed and as dancer and choreographer, he was, if anything, even more popular with Europe’s gay set, because he was more sexually attractive than Nijinsky. Several Oxford and Cambridge dandies were known to treasure scrapbooks filled exclusively with photographs of Miassine, and Harold Acton and Brian Howard, as young Eton students, are reputed to have performed behind closed blinds all the roles of their Russian idol. (They were then a precocious fourteen and thirteen, respectively.)

But history repeated itself. Massine fell in love with a ballerina, quarreled with his lover, and was dismissed from Diaghilev’s company. Three years later, his impetuous marriage annulled, he begged Diaghilev to take him back. Unforgiving, the impresario refused. And by this time, he had Lifar.