The Life and Work of Gelsey Kirkland
The Life and Work of Gelsey Kirkland
Jaclyn Repice
LA 211-301
Professor Goldberg
April 30, 2012
According to many skilled dancers, knowledgeable critics, and essential lovers of ballet, Gelsey Kirkland is one of the most well-known and admired American ballerinas of our time. She was born on the 29th of December in 1952, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Jack Kirkland and Nancy Hoadley. Her father Jack was a play writer, known for his production, Tobacco Road. During the making of Tobacco Road, he met his fifth wife Nancy, who played one of the leading roles for the production. The couple married and began living together on the outskirts of New York before entertaining the idea of raising their family on a farm in Pennsylvania, Gelsey’s birthplace. Due to Jack’s previous marriages, he had a large extended family that lived on the farm with them, which made for a very busy and rather chaotic household. Within this extended family, Gelsey had an older sister Johnna, a younger brother Marshall, a half-brother Christopher, and two half-sisters Robin and Patricia. “For a good number of Kirkland’s early years, approximately from the age of two, she remained speechless to the point where her family began to consider her a mute. Although this was later found out to be false during an incident in which she cried out in the desire for a relative to remain at the farm longer, this set the precedent for Kirkland’s life of making a career out of being ‘seen but not heard.’”
Around the age of four, Gelsey’s father’s involvement in lavish spending and deteriorating wealth, which accumulated from his famous playwrights, caused the family to give up the farm and relocate to Manhattan, in Central Park West. As the family’s funds continued to dissipate, they moved to three different apartments, ultimately taking a toll on the man in charge of the household, Jack. Eventually, personal problems began to take a toll on the entire family, Gelsey especially, as her father became
Jaclyn Repice
LA 211-301
Professor Goldberg
April 30, 2012
According to many skilled dancers, knowledgeable critics, and essential lovers of ballet, Gelsey Kirkland is one of the most well-known and admired American ballerinas of our time. She was born on the 29th of December in 1952, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Jack Kirkland and Nancy Hoadley. Her father Jack was a play writer, known for his production, Tobacco Road. During the making of Tobacco Road, he met his fifth wife Nancy, who played one of the leading roles for the production. The couple married and began living together on the outskirts of New York before entertaining the idea of raising their family on a farm in Pennsylvania, Gelsey’s birthplace. Due to Jack’s previous marriages, he had a large extended family that lived on the farm with them, which made for a very busy and rather chaotic household. Within this extended family, Gelsey had an older sister Johnna, a younger brother Marshall, a half-brother Christopher, and two half-sisters Robin and Patricia. “For a good number of Kirkland’s early years, approximately from the age of two, she remained speechless to the point where her family began to consider her a mute. Although this was later found out to be false during an incident in which she cried out in the desire for a relative to remain at the farm longer, this set the precedent for Kirkland’s life of making a career out of being ‘seen but not heard.’”
Around the age of four, Gelsey’s father’s involvement in lavish spending and deteriorating wealth, which accumulated from his famous playwrights, caused the family to give up the farm and relocate to Manhattan, in Central Park West. As the family’s funds continued to dissipate, they moved to three different apartments, ultimately taking a toll on the man in charge of the household, Jack. Eventually, personal problems began to take a toll on the entire family, Gelsey especially, as her father became