Alicia Markova, who has died at the age of 94, epitomised all the qualities of a great ballerina: a total dedication to the art of classical dancing, together with an imaginative understanding and insight into establishing a character through mime.
She will for ever be associated with Giselle - her 1960 autobiography is called Giselle And I - but her range was far, far wider. She created roles for all the great choreographers of the 20th century and, during her performing career, was an ambassador for ballet comparable only to Anna Pavlova.
She would appear in pantomime, in revue, in vast arenas, and travel thousands of miles to fulfil an engagement she thought important in reaching a new audience.
Born in Finsbury Park, London, the eldest of the four daughters of Arthur Marks and Eileen Barry, and christened Lilian Alicia Marks, she was a thin, delicate child, and a doctor suggested that a little "fancy dancing", as it was then called, might strengthen her fragile legs. Consequently, she was enrolled at a branch of the Thorne Academy in Palmers Green.
Her mother took her to see Princess Serafina Astafieva, a former member of the Imperial Russian and Diaghilev ballet companies, who had a studio in Chelsea. Innocently, she handed in her daughter's card. Astafieva read the "Child Pavlova" inscription and flew into a rage, almost driving them away.
Alicia's tears of disappointment, however, won her permission to watch the class and then dance a solo to show what she could do. Astafieva was impressed and told the mother: "Your little girl is like a racehorse. You must take great care of her and keep her wrapped up in cotton wool."
She was enrolled at the studio and attracted the interest of a fellow pupil, Patrick Kay, who was to be transformed by Diaghilev into Anton Dolin, and they began to practise together.
When, in 1924, her father died suddenly, leaving small provision for his family, a fairy godmother came to Alicia's rescue. Emmy Haskell, whose son, Arnold ,was to introduce the word "balletomania" into the English language in the 1930s through his best-selling book of that name, immediately undertook to sponsor Alicia's lessons.
Astafieva invited Diaghilev to her studio to see her pupils, above all Alicia. After he had seen her dance, the great impresario patted her on the head and said he would engage her for his company.
He changed her surname to Markova, and in January 1925 she joined the troupe in Monte Carlo, accompanied by her formidable governess, known as Guggy, and placed in the care of Ninette de Valois.
She was known to the company as Diaghilev's "latest idea", but Diaghilev, as always, knew what he was doing. Because she was so tiny, at first Alicia could not be used in the corps de ballet and only in a few roles.
However, in May 1925 Diaghilev chose her to study the title role in Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, for which George Balanchine, then also at the beginning of his career, was to make new choreography.
She danced the part the following month at the ballet's Paris premiere and won the admiration of the famous critic, André Levinson. During her four years with Diaghilev, Markova also danced the title role in Balanchine's La Chatte and Princess Florine in the Blue Bird pas de deux in Aurora's Wedding.
But in August 1929 Diaghilev died. For Markova, who was devoted to him, it seemed the end of her world.
In fact, it marked the beginning of a new one, as the ballerina who would enrich the first steps of British ballet, the companies being formed by Marie Rambert and de Valois, with choreographies by Frederick Ashton.
When Rambert and Ashley Dukes opened the Ballet Club at the tiny Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate in 1931, with a company consisting mainly of Rambert's pupils, Markova was engaged as a guest artist at a fee which just about paid for her taxi home. But she had opportunities to dance some of the great classical solos, and to create roles in ballets by Antony Tudor and de Valois.
Especially important was her friendship and collaboration with Frederick Ashton, who made many roles for her in ballets such as La Peri, Façade , Foyer De Danse and the elegant, possibly erotic Les Masques.
Markova first danced with the Vic-Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1932 when she made some guest appearances in ballets by de Valois.
In 1933 she was appointed prima ballerina, and Ashton celebrated her technique, her "gaiety and warmth and wit", by making for her the ballerina role in his Les Rendezvous, his first commissioned work for the company, which premiered that December.
A momentous evening was to follow when, on New Year's Day, 1934, a night of a thick London fog, the Vic-Wells Ballet staged Giselle, for the first time, at the Old Vic.
Markova danced the title role, with Dolin, as a guest, partnering her as Albrecht. The triumph was complete. Markova proved a true successor to the great line of ballerinas who had danced the ballet ever since Carlotta Grisi created it in 1841.
Lilian Baylis, who shared de Valois's faith in the possibility of building a native ballet company in Britain, was well aware of Markova's importance, for it was to see her, just as much as the rest of the company and the repertory, that an audience for ballet was built up and sustained at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells.
She retired from the stage at the end of 1962, but her career was by no means over. Markova subsequently directed the Metropolitan Opera Ballet (1963-69) in New York, was professor of ballet and performing arts at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (from 1970), and became guest teacher and producer for many ballet companies throughout the world.
Alicia Markova (Lilian Alicia Marks): born December 1st, 1910; died December 2nd, 2004